Trump Threatens BBC With Billion-Dollar Lawsuit For Correctly Pointing Out He Supported A Violent Insurrection

from the invertebrates-everywhere dept

You might recall that not that long ago Trump managed to get CBS to pay him a $16 million bribe based entirely on a lie: that the network’s 60 Minutes program had unfairly edited an interview with Kamala Harris. In reality it was a minor, ordinary edit, and CBS could have easily fought the case and won. Instead, they folded like damp cardboard and kissed the ring, which has been a media trend.

Of course, Trump obviously supports misleading edits of news content if it’s supportive of him, as we saw when the new CBS — now owned by one of Trump’s billionaire buddies — recently edited the hell out of an interview with Trump. Those edits not only removed Trump behaving like a toddler, they removed any mention of the fact that CBS executives are abject cowards who paid the President a bribe.

Clearly emboldened by his success at bullying weak-kneed U.S. media outlets, Trump has now taken aim at the BBC for some edits made to a documentary about Trump’s violent insurrection attempt. The documentary in question, “Panorama,” mashed together two parts of Trump’s speech clearly encouraging his followers to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021:

“The edit spliced together two sections of Trump’s speech, making it seem like he said: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”

In reality Trump said “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you” 15 minutes into the speech but “and we fight. We fight like hell” came 54 minutes later.”

So yes, while Trump’s intent was clear either way, it wasn’t the wisest editorial choice knowing Trump’s litigious nature. If you’re going to take aim at this lawsuit-happy con man, you really should have your ducks carefully lined up in a row.

Keen to avoid the threat of a billion-dollar lawsuit by America’s mad idiot king, the BBC has been tripping over itself to try and appease Donald. That has included the overkill choice of the sudden resignations of BBC’s director general Tim Davie and the CEO of News Deborah Turness. And a broad apology tour by BBC chair Samir Shah:

“The conclusion of that deliberation is that we accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologize for that error of judgement.”

Buried by this apology tour was the fact that nobody even noticed this “scandal” or cared about the edits until it was created by the right wing Daily Telegraph. Another in a long line of right wing propaganda outlets that routinely engage in far worse, and far more problematic behaviors that rarely see any sort of accountability, creating a lopsided media landscape that endlessly favors the right wing.

The BBC’s over-groveling about the error downplays the fact that Trump did actively support violent insurrection on a day that resulted in $2.7 million in damages to the Capitol, 174 assaulted police officers, and four belated law enforcement suicides.

You can see in real time how the threats by Trump really do have their intended impact: they disorient journalism and suppress the truth. Trump wants a press that kisses his ass. If he can’t have that, he wants a “both sides” oriented press that’s too afraid to point out factual reality. And he’s getting it.

This New York Times coverage of the BBC fracas can’t even be bothered to mention this “scandal” was started by a right wing tabloid. More curiously, the outlet can’t be bothered to mention that there really was a violent insurrection that the President really did pretty clearly openly support after endlessly stoking completely baseless election conspiracy theories. Kind of important context.

You can be apologetic for errors in judgement (in a way that lessons your legal exposure) without validating the criminal president, turning into a pile of feckless jelly, and burying the fact this was a fake scandal nobody would have cared about if not for the gamesmanship of right wing media.

Filed Under: donald trump, fascism, insurrection, january 6, journalism, liability, media, violent overthrow

Companies: bbc