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Factbox-What are the key claims made in the leaked internal BBC memo?
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on November 10, 2025
4 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Global Banking and Finance Review
Company
Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on November 10, 2025
4 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
The leaked BBC memo reveals editorial bias accusations, focusing on Trump, Israel-Hamas, and transgender issues, leading to leadership resignations.
(Refiles Nov. 10 FACTBOX to provide a more detailed description of the case in paragraph 12)
LONDON (Reuters) -The BBC's director-general and head of news resigned on Sunday following mounting accusations of editorial bias at the British broadcaster, including in the editing of a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump.
The publicly funded broadcaster has faced growing scrutiny after the Daily Telegraph published details from a leaked internal memo by a former standards adviser. The report highlighted shortcomings in the BBC's coverage of the Israel–Hamas conflict, transgender issues, and its handling of Trump's remarks.
Key findings from the memo, which was written by Michael Prescott to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, include:
TRUMP PROGRAMME
Prescott said that an edition of the BBC's flagship Panorama show broadcast a week before the U.S. election, "Trump: A Second Chance?", "seemed to be taking a distinctly anti-Trump stance", noting that critics of Trump far outnumbered his supporters.
The programme spliced together two separate excerpts from one of Trump's speeches, creating the impression that he was inciting the January 2021 Capitol Hill riot, he said.
Trump was shown telling his supporters that "we're going to walk down to the Capitol" and that they would "fight like hell", a comment he made in a different part of his speech. He had actually said his supporters would "cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women".
ISRAEL-HAMAS COVERAGE
Prescott noted that several contributors to the BBC's Arabic service had selectively covered stories critical of Israel.
On one occasion, the BBC's main English-language news site published 19 separate articles about the hostages taken by Hamas on the day of the October 7 attack in 2023, while BBC Arabic published none. By contrast, every article critical of Israel that appeared on the BBC News website was also featured on BBC Arabic.
The memo also highlighted that while BBC Arabic often ran the same stories as the BBC's English-language website, there were significant differences in tone, headlines, and emphasis, with coverage generally more critical of Israel.
Prescott also criticised the BBC for allegedly misreporting the proportion of Palestinian women and children killed by Israeli military actions, as well as for inaccurately portraying the likelihood of children facing starvation under Israel's aid blockade.
TRANSGENDER COVERAGE
Prescott said stories raising "difficult questions" about transgender issues were often overlooked, even when they had been widely reported and debated by other media outlets. He also noted that some features presented the transgender experience in an overly one-sided manner, lacking sufficient balance and objectivity.
The memo said the BBC failed to cover a case in which a group of nurses sued their employer over a policy allowing a transgender woman to use the women's changing room.
IMMIGRATION ISSUES AND HISTORIANS
Prescott noted that the BBC sent few push notifications about illegal migrants or asylum seekers to its 7 million news app users, even as less significant stories received extensive coverage.
The memo also said that producers of four BBC programmes with historical content favoured non-expert academics who offered quotable sound bites on racism and prejudice, producing oversimplified and distorted narratives about British colonialism, slavery, and their legacy.
RACISM
Prescott wrote in his memo that the BBC "fell too easily for putting out ill-researched material that suggested issues of racism when there were none". He cited a report claiming that people living in areas with a high proportion of ethnic minority residents paid more for car insurance, even though road accident and crime rates were similar.
He noted that the reporting and commentary ignored other factors that can influence insurance costs, relied on outdated and unsuitable data, and featured only one guest who supported the claim. The Association of British Insurers declined to appear, and its statement, which provided crucial context, was selectively quoted. The report was later taken down.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Paul Sandle and Conor Humphries)
Editorial bias refers to the tendency of media outlets to present news stories in a way that reflects a particular viewpoint or agenda, rather than providing a balanced perspective.
Transgender coverage refers to how media outlets report on issues related to transgender individuals, including their rights, experiences, and representation in society.
Immigration issues encompass various topics related to the movement of people across borders, including policies, laws, and the social implications of immigration.
Racism in media reporting occurs when news stories perpetuate stereotypes or biases against certain racial or ethnic groups, often leading to misrepresentation and discrimination.
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