Ian Youngs
Culture reporter
The BBC chairman, Samir Shah, told MPs he will not walk away after criticism of his handling of the Panorama edit of a Donald Trump speech, apologising for “the mistakes that have been made and the impact that has had” and saying he intends to “fix it”.
The controversy followed the publication of an internal memo by former editorial adviser Michael Prescott, who told MPs he had seen “systemic problems” in BBC News while serving as an adviser between 2022 and 2025, though he said he did not think the corporation was institutionally biased. The row led to the resignations of director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness earlier this month.
Opening his evidence, Shah apologised “to all the people who believe in the BBC and care for it” and said his priority was to “steady the ship, put it on even keel”. “I’m not somebody who walks away from a problem. I think my job is to fix it. That’s what I’m doing,” he said.
A job advert for a new director general was published shortly before the parliamentary hearing, and Shah said he would like to create a deputy role because the top job is “too big for one person”. He acknowledged criticism that the BBC was slow to tackle concerns raised by Prescott and slow to respond publicly after the memo was leaked to the Telegraph. “Looking back, I think we should have made the decision [to apologise] earlier,” Shah said, adding there was an issue with the speed of the response and that it took time to investigate and agree what the apology should say.
MPs heard there had been a “continuing and sharp difference of opinion” between some board members and executives over the wording of the apology. The dispute centred on whether the BBC should apologise for giving the impression that Trump had made a “call to violent action”, or simply for not making clear that two sections of the speech had been edited together. Caroline Thomson, a board member, said some colleagues felt the Panorama clip had given a “misleading impression” of Trump’s message, while the News department contended the edit was fair in context but should have been more transparent. “News continued to maintain that actually the impression given, despite the edit, was correct,” she said.
Shah praised Turness for doing the “honourable and proper” thing in stepping down but said that did not, in his view, require the director general to resign. “The board wishes that the director general had not resigned. He had our full confidence throughout,” he told MPs.
Sir Robbie Gibb, a BBC board member and former Downing Street communications director, dismissed suggestions of a politically motivated “coup” at the top of the corporation as “complete nonsense” and “one of the most ridiculous charges”. He rejected claims he had used a right-wing bias to influence the board and said his BBC career far outweighed his time in government.
Prescott told MPs he had grown frustrated by what he saw as a lack of action on issues documented in his memo, including the Panorama edit, questions about BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, and coverage of trans issues. He said management sometimes responded to internal reports by denying the problems and that he was “in despair” when BBC management defended the Panorama edit. Prescott emphasised he remained a “strong supporter” of the BBC and had hoped the issues could be “sorted out quietly”; he did not know how his memo was leaked.
Caroline Daniel, another former external editorial adviser, said Prescott’s memo was a personal account she would not label biased and that the BBC had engaged in robust debate and taken action on some issues. However, committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage later told BBC Radio 4 she found Shah’s answers “wishy washy” and remained unconvinced the board would act quickly or decisively. “We were really looking for hard evidence that the BBC board are going to grip this,” she said, adding she was “not entirely convinced that they can and they will” and that the committee was not “wildly enthused that the board is in safe hands.”
