For everyone who can’t stand Trump, everyone who loves him, and everyone who cares about truth in the media, today’s story that the BBC is apologizing to Trump is hugely significant.
But it won’t be told clearly in big mainstream news outlets. They have far too many epic failures of their own.
It’s a story of the dismal state of legacy media and the different forms of radicalization fighting for dominance in Western societies. It’s proof that when the demand gets loud enough, people with power get involved, and the potential financial costs are too great (Trump is threatening a $1 billion lawsuit) , big media can actually take responsibility for journalistic failure.
And it’s a story of profound hypocrisy. While the BBC’s misleading coverage of Trump’s January 6, 2021, speech was malpractice, it’s nothing compared to other disasters also unearthed by the same investigation of the BBC — ones the broadcaster refuses to apologize for.
But even as some right-wing outlets have pointed to the BBC’s biased coverage of Trump, they themselves have created a different false impression of what he said that day.
The story is in the latest episode here or wherever you listen:
Facts: On January 6, 2021, Trump lied about the election. He insisted the voting was fraudulent, since he had lost. He knew better. His team knew better. By telling a radicalized crowd that their country was being stolen from them, he revved up dangerous people who went on to carry out a violent insurrection.
But that doesn’t mean his infamous speech was a straight-up call for violence. His own remarks included a call to be peaceful.
Later on, the BBC connected two lines from Trump’s speech, nearly an hour apart, to make it seem as though they were said back-to-back. Removing words in a speech can be done fairly, but never to dramatically change what a person said.
I went through the original speech, to explain what the BBC did wrong; what some criticizing the BBC also did wrong; and what Trump actually said. The full evidence is key to understanding the global media crisis this apology reveals. Below the jump, you’ll find the breakdown, including the words the BBC removed, the context it suppressed, and the clear hypocrisy of the agency’s apology.
Here’s an edited, searchable, hyperlinked transcript from the latest episode, bringing you what the mainstream media won’t: facts+context.
