From The Times retraction to BBC apology: Relentless pace tests accuracy, restraint

Barely a week after The Times newspaper was forced to retract a fabricated interview with former New York mayor Bill de Blasio, the BBC is preparing to apologise for airing a mis-edited clip of Donald Trump. Two of Britain's most respected news institutions -- one print, one broadcast -- have found themselves at the centre of unwanted controversy.

Mistakes can occur in any newsroom under deadline pressure; what matters is how organisations respond and rebuild trust. Both episodes are reminders of how even the strongest traditions of accuracy and restraint are tested by today’s relentless pace of technology and audience demand.

The BBC’s latest controversy arises from a Panorama documentary broadcast a week before last year’s US presidential election.

The programme inadvertently joined two separate parts of a Trump rally speech from 6 January 2021, creating the impression that the former president had urged his supporters to “fight like hell” and march with him on Washington.

In fact, that line came later in his remarks, after he had told the crowd to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

The sequence altered the tone of what viewers heard, and once the edit was noticed, questions about judgement and process inevitably followed.

BBC chairman Samir Shah, who was born in Aurangabad, India, and came to Britain in 1960 aged eight, is expected to address the issue publicly. Shah joined the corporation in the 1980s, becoming Head of Current Affairs and Political Programmes before leaving in 1998 to find Juniper TV, an independent production company that went on to make acclaimed documentaries for major broadcasters. In 2023, he returned as the first India-born chairman of the BBC Board, symbolising both diversity and continuity at Britain’s most influential media organisation.

For Shah, the challenge now is less about one programme than about perception, how to show that the BBC remains capable of correcting itself swiftly and transparently. It is an awkward moment for a man whose own career embodies the ideal of openness and fairness: an Indian-born reformer asked to steady the ship of one of Britain’s proudest institutions.

Inside the BBC, there is quiet recognition that the corporation could have moved faster. Senior journalists acknowledge that Director General Tim Davie and News Chief Executive Deborah Turness faced a difficult balance between caution and candour.

“Trust in our impartiality is not nice to have, it is the very essence of who we are. It is the bedrock of why people come to us,” Davie said in his inaugural address to BBC staff in 2020. His words underline the same dilemma now confronting the corporation: how to preserve credibility without paralysis.

Danny Cohen, a former BBC One controller, observed last week that such hesitation can leave the impression of defensiveness even when no ill intent is involved.

In the same week, another story captured the BBC’s complicated internal climate. The corporation’s Executive Complaints Unit upheld 20 complaints against newsreader Martine Croxall after she raised her eyebrows while replacing the phrase “pregnant people” with “women” during a live broadcast. Managers concluded that her expression could be interpreted as a comment on transgender issues. To many colleagues, it was a curious contrast: a fleeting on-air gesture drew formal censure, while a more serious editing mistake took months to resolve.

The Times incident, though very different in nature, carried a similar lesson. A reporter’s misdirected email led to an entirely false interview being published and then swiftly retracted. Both cases show how thin the line between accuracy and error has become in the digital age. Deadlines are constant, communication is fragmented, and the traditional safeguards of sub-editing and cross-checking are under strain.

None of this diminishes the continuing importance of these institutions. The Times and the BBC remain among the world’s most trusted sources of news, admired precisely because they do, in the end, hold themselves accountable. Their recent experiences serve as a reminder of how fragile trust can be and how essential it is to preserve.

The broader concern is not a single mistake but a shifting newsroom culture. Verification, once the heart of journalism, can too easily become a procedural box to tick. The old hierarchy of care — reporter, sub-editor, news editor — has been flattened by dashboards and deadlines. The digital mantra of “publish first, correct later” has crept from fringe websites into mainstream practice. As a result, the very currency of credibility, hard-earned over decades, risks being diluted by haste.

In India, the pressures are different. Too many editors live in fear of upsetting those in power, trimming their sails to the political wind. Yet a number of independent digital outlets continue to treat verification as a moral duty, checking every fact and publishing prompt corrections. In the West, meanwhile, the danger lies less in political fear than in institutional complacency, the quiet assumption that reputation alone will guarantee trust.

Across the global media, East and West alike, the greater risk today is not error but evasion: the reluctance to admit and correct mistakes with candour. No newsroom is immune from human fallibility, but accountability begins with acknowledging it quickly and completely.

The pendulum of credibility may be shifting southward, not because the Global South is flawless, but because it still remembers that truth is not a brand but a discipline. The world’s leading newsrooms, including those in London and New York, have the skill and heritage to restore that standard. What is needed now is the humility — and the confidence — to keep trying.