The BBC, one of Britain’s most venerable media institutions, is in the midst of a storm that shows no sign of abating. This week, yet another board member, Shumeet Banerji, stepped down, citing “governance issues” and a lack of consultation over the dramatic resignations of the broadcaster’s top two news executives. His exit is just the latest in a series of blows following the fallout from a controversial Panorama documentary that edited a speech by former U.S. President Donald Trump, sparking outrage, political scrutiny, and the looming threat of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.
Banerji, a tech investor who joined the BBC board in 2022, was responsible for upholding the broadcaster’s independence. According to BBC News, he said he was “not consulted” about the sequence of events that led to the departures of Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness. The BBC confirmed Banerji’s resignation on November 21, 2025, noting his term was set to expire at the end of December. The search for his replacement is already underway, but the timing couldn’t be worse for the broadcaster, which is facing mounting questions about its leadership and editorial standards.
The crisis erupted after a Panorama episode aired a week before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. The documentary, titled Trump: A Second Chance, included an edited sequence of Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech. The edit spliced together clips in a way that appeared to show Trump telling his supporters to “fight like hell” as they marched to the Capitol. In reality, Trump’s actual words were, “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” only later urging them to “fight like hell.” The misleading edit, first brought to light in a memo published by The Daily Telegraph on November 3, 2025, triggered a firestorm both inside and outside the BBC.
According to The Sun, the fallout was swift. Both Davie and Turness resigned, acknowledging mistakes and the need for accountability. Davie admitted, “there have been some mistakes made,” while Turness stated leaders like herself should be held “fully accountable” for significant errors. However, Turness pushed back against claims that the BBC was institutionally biased, insisting such allegations were “wrong.”
Despite their resignations, public anger was stoked further when it emerged that Davie and Turness would receive nearly £500,000 between them—£272,500 for Davie and £217,500 for Turness—representing six months’ pay regardless of whether they worked their full notice. Tory MP Sir Alec Shelbrooke criticized the payouts, telling The Sun on Sunday, “It’s quite incredible. Once again, you see in the public sector that when someone has to resign over, effectively, a complete disaster, they still get to walk away with huge chunks of money. You ask yourself, where is the accountability?” Both outgoing executives said they would work on an “orderly handover,” but the optics of the payouts have only added fuel to the fire.
Meanwhile, the BBC’s apology to Trump has failed to quell the controversy. The broadcaster admitted the edit was misleading and stated it would not rebroadcast the documentary. A spokesperson explained, “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.” Nevertheless, Trump’s legal team demanded not only an apology and retraction but also compensation for what they called “overwhelming reputational and financial harm.” Trump himself told reporters, “We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably sometime next week.” The BBC, for its part, has held firm, with chair Samir Shah reiterating on November 24, 2025, that the corporation “sees no basis for a defamation case,” even as he acknowledged reaching out to Trump with an apology letter.
The documentary at the heart of the crisis has been removed from BBC iPlayer, never aired in the U.S., and was dropped by distributor Blue Ant Media. The controversial edit was discussed twice at an internal BBC editorial standards committee before being revealed to the public. Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger, speaking at the British Screen Forum on November 23, 2025, described the edit as “a clumsy 12-second edit,” not an ideological attack on Trump. He told the audience, “It wasn’t a hatchet job on Trump. It was a 12-second edit that was a way of jumping to a new sequence. That doesn’t seem to me like an ideological attack on the right, it feels to me like a clumsy edit, but those are the standards to which BBC journalism are now held.”
Rusbridger went further, arguing that the BBC is the target of a “completely irrational vendetta,” and warned of political pressures as the broadcaster’s charter renewal approaches. With the next general election looming and the possibility of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party gaining ground, the BBC faces calls to overhaul its funding model. Farage, a friend of Trump’s, has publicly decried the license fee as “completely unacceptable.” The political temperature is rising, with UK Culture Minister Ian Murray recently remarking that many Britons would now prefer to watch Fox News over BBC News.
Inside the BBC, the crisis has exposed deep divisions. Rusbridger highlighted the influence of board member Robbie Gibb, a former Conservative Party spin doctor, who is the only member of the five-person editorial standards committee with an editorial background. Rusbridger argued that the BBC’s governance “needs a redesign from government.” Gibb, along with Shah and Caroline Thomson, is set to appear before the Culture, Media & Sport Committee on November 24, 2025, where MPs are expected to grill them on accountability, the chain of command, and who ultimately signed off on the Panorama edit.
Banerji’s resignation letter, referenced by BBC News, made it clear that he felt sidelined during the crisis. His departure, coming just weeks before the end of his term, underscores the fractures at the highest levels of the BBC’s leadership. The broadcaster, which is funded by the license fee and thus accountable to the public, is now fending off not only legal threats from Trump but also criticism from lawmakers questioning its governance and editorial integrity.
For the BBC, the stakes could hardly be higher. With its leadership in turmoil, its editorial standards under scrutiny, and its funding model up for debate, the broadcaster faces a pivotal moment. The coming weeks—especially the public grilling of its board by MPs—will likely determine not just the fate of those at the top, but the very future of the BBC’s role in British public life.
