BBC should ‘continue to resist’ Trump legal action over Panorama edit – peers

The BBC should “continue to resist” a 10 billion dollar legal action by Donald Trump, peers have said.

Lord Fowler, a former Lord Speaker, said the BBC’s Panorama programme was “rightly criticised” for the editing on a story about the US president, but hit out at Mr Trump using it as the basis for challenging all the broadcaster’s reporting.

The programme faced criticism late last year over an episode broadcast in 2024, for giving the impression the president had encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol building in 2021.

Mr Trump is seeking up to 10 billion dollars (£7.5 billion) in damages in response to the editing of the speech, with his lawyers claiming it was “false and defamatory”.

Lord Fowler, a crossbench peer who worked as a Times journalist and chairman of the Yorkshire Post, called for the BBC to fight the legal action.

Addressing the House of Lords on Thursday during a debate on broadcasting in the UK, he said: “The (Panorama) error was to put the comments together rather than leaving any space between them, and (Tim Davie, the outgoing director general) paid a heavy price for that because he was forced into resignation.

“It became the opportunity for a rich man to challenge the whole basis of BBC reporting.

“I hope that the BBC will continue to resist any legal action.

“What is being claimed is entirely out of proportion to any damage that might have been caused.”

Lord Vaizey of Didcot, a former Conservative culture minister and Times Radio presenter, said: “We can be critical friends of the BBC, but we should be careful what we would lose without it.

“I really do react with astonishment and a bit of horror when I see people supporting the move, for example, by President Trump, to sue the BBC because they happen to have watched BBC News the night before and disagree with its tone or supposed bias.”

BBC News has previously reported that lawyers for the BBC had given a lengthy response to the president’s claims before Mr Trump filed the lawsuit, and said “there was no malice in the edit and that Trump was not harmed by the programme, as he was re-elected shortly after it aired”.

A review published in December found the BBC’s editing guidelines did not need to be altered after the controversy.

During the Lords debate, Baroness Wheatcroft, a former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal Europe, criticised broadcasters for allowing politicians to present programmes, appearing to reference Reform UK and Conservative MPs appearing on GB News.

She said: “I now challenge you to find a politician who is not presenting current affairs as news on certain channels. This is not the way that broadcasting should operate.”

Heritage minister Baroness Twycross said: “Polemic should not be presented as fact.

“The lines between broadcast news and opinion are becoming, in some cases, increasingly blurred. It is a dangerous place for democracy if people cannot trust what they see and hear.”