Boris Johnson and White House criticise the corporation, but some journalists say criticism is part of campaign to destroy the BBC
The BBC is expected to apologise on Monday for the way in which a speech by the US president, Donald Trump, was edited in an episode of Panorama. The show is one of a number of examples highlighted by Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial standards committee, who detailed his concerns about the broadcaster’s impartiality in a memo published by the Telegraph.
Details of a “dossier” compiled by Prescott were published in the Telegraph over the course of last week. The main criticism of Prescott’s memo focused on an edition of Panorama, broadcast a week before the US election. He accused the BBC of selectively editing a Trump speech.
Prescott also raised concerns about BBC Arabic. He claimed that a review by the BBC journalist David Grossman had highlighted “systemic problems within BBC Arabic” that represented anti-Israel bias.
The 19-page dossier is also reported to have criticised the BBC’s coverage of transgender issues, saying the broadcaster had been “captured by a small group of [staff] promoting the Stonewall view” of gender identity issues, and that its LGBT desk would “decline to cover any stories raising difficult questions”.
