BBC stumbles into yet another Trump censorship row

It appears that the BBC has reached a new low. Popular author and educator Rutger Bregman has accused the broadcaster of censoring his first Reith lecture, by removing a line naming Donald Trump as the most corrupt president in US history.

Bregman is the author of books including ‘Humankind: A Hopeful History’ and ‘Utopia for Realists’. He has written for the Washington Post, the Conversation and the Guardian, among other accomplishments. Some of his more radically sensible ideas include a defense of open borders, a 15-hour workweek, and universal basic income payments.

As such, it’s unsurprising that the BBC decided to invite Bregman to give this year’s annual Reith lecture on Radio 4. The lectures commemorate John Reith, the first director general of the national broadcaster. He believed that broadcasting is a public service which should enrich people’s intellectual and cultural lives.

For today’s BBC, that ideal is nothing more than a distant memory.

Donald Trump is openly corrupt

On 25 November, Bregman posted a video to his LinkedIn page exposing what the BBC had done. It was accompanied by a written statement, which read:

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor the opening lecture of a series they invited me to deliver.

They removed the sentence in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.”

This line was taken out of a lecture they commissioned, reviewed through the full editorial process, and recorded four weeks ago in front of 500 people in the BBC Radio Theatre.

In the video itself, Bregman stated that his assertion about Trump’s corruption was far from unfounded:

And let me be clear. This sentence wasn’t a baseless accusation. It was a defensible and plausible statement. It’s well known that Donald Trump and his family are personally profiting from the presidency to a degree we haven’t seen before.

Just so that it’s said: Donald Trump was a monstrously corrupt businessman, who went on to become president of the United States.

In his video, Bregman pointed to a New Yorker article underlining Trump’s $3.5bn in personal enrichment from the presidency.

This is not a contentious statement. The corruption isn’t happening behind closed doors. The odious little cunt is advertising canned beans from the White House. We are watching it happen, and yet the BBC doesn’t dare to air an individual stating that fact.

‘Self-censorship driven by fear’

Regarding the BBC’s act of censorship, Bregman posted:

This has happened against my wishes, and I’m deeply troubled by it. Not because people can’t disagree with my words, but because self-censorship driven by fear (Trump is threatening to sue the BBC) should concern all of us.

This isn’t about left or right. It’s about the health of our democratic institutions. For decades the Reith Lectures have been one of the BBC’s most important platforms for open debate and free expression. That’s why this really matters.

That threat to sue the BBC was because of the broadcaster’s edit of a Trump speech, aired on Panorama. In the programme, Trump appeared to say:

We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.

In reality, Trump voiced the “and we fight” portion of the speech more than 50 minutes later. This was obviously terrible journalism. It was also completely pointless, given that he stood in front of an audience who chanted “fight for Trump”, told them to march on the Capitol, claimed the election had been stolen, told them Biden was an illegitimate president, and urged them to fight like hell.

The House January 6th Committee’s report concluded that Trump lit the fires of the insurrection. The charge of election interference was only dropped against Trump when he was about to re-gain the presidency — and its accompanying immunity.

‘A time of monsters’

However, the sudden emergence of the Panorama edit, more than four years later, has given the BBC an excuse to kneel in the face of a corrupt tyrant.

As Bregman stated in his video:

Last Wednesday, I was told that sentence was being discussed with US lawyers, and at the highest levels inside the BBC. For days, they couldn’t give me an answer. Yesterday, they did — and the irony couldn’t be bigger, because this lecture, titled ‘A Time of Monsters’ is exactly about the cowardice of today’s elites, about universities, corporations, and yes, media networks bending the knee to authoritarianism.

The BBC bending the knee coincides with a geopolitical flashpoint, with Trump poised to mount a war on Venezuela. He’s doing so behind the flimsy guise of the war on drugs.

Trump recently branded the ‘Cartel de los Soles’ a terrorist organisation, ignoring the question of whether they actually exist. The US government also alleged that Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, is the leader of the Cartel.

And, just like that, the BBC trots out an article admitting that Cartel de los Soles is actually a byword for the system of corruption that flourishes under Maduro. It states that “the truth lies somewhere in between” the rival positions held by the US government and the Venezuelans.

The US position is that Venezuela’s parliament is made up of the narcoterrorist Cartel de los Soles, whom the US should be allowed to bomb with impunity. Venezuela’s position is that the Cartel de los Soles is fictional. The BBC’s assertion that the truth lies “somewhere in between” is ludicrous. Rather, it is manufacturing consent for war.

‘Not here to dunk’

Bregman concludes his video by stating:

Look, I am not here to dunk on the thousands of serious journalists who work at the BBC. […] But this decision by the leadership of the BBC is very serious.

I admire this sentiment. It is completely in line with the thinking of a man who believes that humankind is, at its core, fundamentally good. I would like to think that I share that belief, still.

However, I am here to dunk on BBC journalists.

The BBC gives massively inflated coverage to Israeli deaths in their country’s war on Palestine, and consistently downplays accusations of a genocide that has unfolded before our eyes.

It gives disproportionate amounts of airtime to Reform UK and their leader, Nigel Farage, the UK’s own fascist-in-waiting. This coverage far outweighs that of the Lib Dems, the UK’s current third-largest party.

The broadcaster censored an independent podcast about heat pumps, in case it upset the fossil lobby. Question Time stuffs panels and audiences with right-wing figures. The BBC is regularly transphobic, imperialist and Islamophobic … I could go on for hours here.

I’m sure that there are many fantastic BBC journalists. Unfortunately, I also believe that their presence serves to legitimise an organisation that is directly responsible for shifting the Overton window so far to the right that this country is becoming unrecognisable.

The BBC pretends that it is neutral. This would be a problem even if it were true — neutrality in the face of oppression can only ever aid the oppressor. However, as the broadcaster demonstrated in censoring Bregman’s lecture, even that facade of neutrality is crumbling.

The BBC, as an organisation, is busily engaged in licking the boots of fascists. At some point, its “serious journalists” must ask themselves: am I happy supporting this?

Featured image via Ted Talks