Donald Trump is “more likely to win the lottery” than succeed in his proposed lawsuit against the BBC, according to a US legal expert quoted in the Telegraph – the newspaper that fist “broke” the news of some two-year-old editing for a Panorama documentary earlier this month.
Gregory Germain, a professor at Syracuse University College of Law in New York, claimed Trump’s potential case would not meet the threshold of proving factual inaccuracy.
He told the paper: “The facts were not false. Editing video to change the order of quotes to make a point is what video editors do every day.”
Former BBC director general Tony Hall has also added his voice to the chorus stating that the BBC should not bend over at the US President’s $5bn bidding (up from $1bn less than a week ago).
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Speaking to BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday, Hall said the move should be blocked if Trump proceeded with his threats. “No, [it] should not happen,” he said. “I don’t think we should agree to any money being paid to Donald Trump. You’re talking about licence fee payers’ money, you’re talking about public money. It would not be appropriate.”
Hall, who stepped down as director general in 2020 after seven years in the role, called the video edit a “serious error”, and said it should have “been recognised as such much earlier in the whole process.”
But he added he worried that the “hard work, diligence and the belief in impartiality” of BBC journalists had been lost in the debate.
The row over the episode of Panorama from last year about the Capitol Riot in 2021 has led to accusations of bias at the broadcaster and the resignation of two of its most senior executives, director general, Tim Davie and Deborah Turness, the chief executive of news.
The BBC, which has agreed not to show the edition of Panorama again, sent an apology to Trump last Thursday but said there was no legal basis for him to sue the public broadcaster over a documentary his lawyers called defamatory. On Friday Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One: “We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and $5bn, probably sometime next week. We have to do it.”
The BBC chair, Samir Shah, sent a personal apology on Thursday to the White House and told lawmakers the edit was “an error of judgment”. The following day the culture minister and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy added that the apology was “right and necessary.”
