We all know the BBC is a mess but we mustn’t let Donald Trump destroy it |
The BBC may be bad, but we need to defend it as the alternative would be far, far worse, argues Neil Mackay
By any measure, the BBC, particularly its news department, needs a good hard slap, metaphorically speaking.
However, it is for the British people to deal with the BBC over its editorial failings, not some foreign president, whose moral universe puts him on the level of the average bag of garbage.
Indeed, I doubt even a sentient garbage bag would mock the dead, as Donald Trump did this week following the loss of the director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.
Trump, we must remember, was found liable in a civil court of sexually abusing the writer EJ Carrol. He has asked the Supreme Court to review that verdict. He was also found guilty on 34 felony counts after prosecutors alleged he engaged in a “scheme” to boost his chances during the 2016 presidential election through a series of hush money payments to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels, and then falsified business records to cover up that alleged criminal conduct.
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Now Trump is suing the BBC for $10billion over a badly edited section in a Panorama documentary. He’s claiming “reputational” harm.
As an aside, the key test of whether an issue is defamatory is that it would “lower the estimation of the person among right-thinking members of society”. In other words, you need a decent reputation in the first place to be defamed.
There are far more worrying matters surrounding the BBC than shoddy editing. This summer a story emerged concerning........