The BBC is being investigated by the broadcast regulator in the US over its editing of a speech by US President Donald Trump featured in an episode of Panorama.
Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), wrote to executives at the BBC yesterday.
Mr Carr also wrote to two US broadcasters, PBS and NPR, to find out whether the programme was aired in the US and had broken FCC regulations.
The corporation apologised for the speech edit, which it said gave the ‘mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action’ on the day of the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.
The broadcaster said the splicing of the speech was an ‘error of judgment’ but refused to pay financial compensation, after the US president’s lawyers threatened to sue for $1billion in damages unless a retraction and apology were published.
In an episode broadcast in June 2022, Newsnight reportedly played an edit of his speech which was similar to the one used in the Panorama programme.
Mr Carr’s letter reportedly outlined how the two segments of speech that had been spliced together had been spoken almost an hour apart.