Tony Hall says BBC should not pay any money to Trump

Former director general Tony Hall believes it would “not be appropriate” for the BBC to pay Donald Trump any money over the Panorama doc scandal.

On Friday, the US president confirmed his intent to sue the BBC for up to $5bn (£3.8bn) over the editing of his 6 January speech in a Panorama documentary, despite receiving an apology from the broadcaster on Thursday evening.

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, which had refused to pay compensation, said its “position remains the same”, and it had had no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers.

A BBC spokesperson said: “We have had no further contact from President Trump’s lawyers at this point. Our position remains the same.”

Speaking on BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday (16 November,) Hall 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, a BBC News chief before his DG tenure, called the video edit a “serious error” and that it should have “been recognised as such much earlier in the whole process”, but that the “hard work, diligence and the belief in impartiality” of BBC journalists had been lost amid the row.

The edit of Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021, the day of the Capitol riot, in Trump: A Second Chance? was a key factor in the resignation of the director general Tim Davie chief executive of BBC News Deborah Turness.

Fresh claims emerged last week about the BBC misleading viewers over the same speech, more than two years before A Second Chane? aired. The Telegraph’s Daily T podcast reported that an episode of Newsnight in June 2022 played a similar edited version of the 6 January speech.

In response to the Newsnight claim, a BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC holds itself to the highest editorial standards. This matter has been brought to our attention, and we are now looking into it.”