MOSCOW, November 10. /TASS/. The BBC publication of US President Donald Trump’s speech, which allegedly concerned the Capitol Hill riot on January 6, 2021, is fake and a deliberate manipulation, Timofey V, an expert with the Global Fact-Checking Network (GFCN), told TASS.
"The BBC report is an obvious fake and intentional manipulation. Its authors sought to distort the events in a deliberately negative way. There is no room for accidental error here," he said.
"Such blatant lies are rare in major global media, journalists usually manipulate the audience through selective facts and emotional presentation," the expert pointed out. "Even for the BBC, such outright deceit is, to put it mildly, uncharacteristic," he noted. "This is a clear violation of basic journalistic ethics," V added.
The analyst said that the corporation has also released more subtle manipulations. For example, in 2022 the outlet accused Russia of allegedly "deliberately blowing up the water pipeline from Kherson to Nikolayev using explosives." According to V, to support their claim, the journalists cited two experts who made their verdict "based on a photograph." "Our investigation showed that these experts had a conflict of interest and financial ties to the outlet, but most interestingly, the original source of the photo explicitly stated that the pipeline was destroyed due to an accidental shell hit. Despite being exposed, the article remains online on the BBC’s website in both Russian and English," he noted. "It’s a clear example of how, even when a media outlet is caught red-handed, and not just once, its editorial policy doesn’t change. As Special Representative of Russian President Vladimir Putin for Investment and Economic Cooperation with foreign countries Kirill Dmitriev rightly noted, this has become a pattern," V added.
In this context, the expert urged the audience to remember that, despite claims of objectivity, independence, and journalistic standards, "Western media have their own stance and political views, which they are not shy about weaving into their coverage."
On the resignation of the BBC Director General
Amid the scandal surrounding the falsification of Trump’s speech, BBC Director General Tim Davie resigned on November 9. The corporation’s head of news broadcasting, Deborah Turness, also announced her departure from her position.
As The Daily Telegraph reported on November 3, in an episode of Panorama aired by the BBC in October last year ahead of the US presidential election, Trump’s speech was edited so that it appeared as though he encouraged the Capitol Hill riot, while in reality, he was speaking about the need to express civic positions through peaceful means. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had earlier accused the BBC of spreading false reports.
On January 6, 2021, supporters of Trump, who was then serving as US president, stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to halt the certification of the results of the November 2020 presidential election, which Democrat Joe Biden had won. During the chaos inside the building, police fatally shot a female protester. Several other unrelated deaths were recorded and classified as medical emergencies. A Capitol police officer also died following the clashes. Trump won the 2024 US presidential election and resumed office as head of the American administration on January 20 of this year.