Jorge Bonilla wrote a story here on Sunday about the BBC bosses, Director General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness, being forced to resign due to their organization doctoring a clip of President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.
So how did Politico cover this scandal? By treading lightly on the details while emphasizing that “the latest crisis marks a significant escalation in attacks on the BBC from the right.”
In addition, strongly implied that the Trump administration’s reaction to the BBC scandal displayed unseemly hubris as you can see in the title of their Sunday story by Matt Honeycombe-Foster, “Trump gloats as BBC boss quits over coverage ‘mistakes’.”
The Trump “gloating” as portrayed by Politico can be seen right away in the body of the story by the second paragraph:
The head of Britain’s publicly-funded broadcaster and its top news executive resigned Sunday after days of pressure over its coverage of Donald Trump.
In a move swiftly celebrated by the U.S. president, BBC Director-General Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness both announced their exits from the media institution.
The resignations — which represent a moment of crisis at the U.K.’s main public service broadcaster — come after days of torrid headlines for the BBC over an episode of its flagship Panorama documentary show.
And, according to Politico, it was not only Trump who supposedly acted poorly but also White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt who had the gall to have not only “seized” (but not pounced?) on the scandal but compounded the grievous breach of liberal etiquette because she “appeared jubilant.”
Trump’s White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt seized on the row in an interview with the Telegraph newspaper on Friday, directly accusing the broadcaster of being “purposefully dishonest” and peddling “total, 100 percent fake news.”
The White House press chief appeared jubilant Sunday, posting screenshotted news coverage of both her remarks and Davie’s subsequent resignation on X alongside the caption “Shot: … Chaser.”
Shot: Chaser: pic.twitter.com/n0U08PnUJb
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) November 9, 2025
Politico also suggested that the scandal was the result of of attacks from political elements for whom they assume their readership dislikes as much as they do:
But the latest crisis marks a significant escalation in attacks on the BBC from the right — and comes just as ministers prepare to review the broadcaster’s funding model.
Last week the right-leaning Telegraph newspaper published a memo written by Michael Prescott, the BBC’s former standards advisor, covering a range of alleged failings in its content. That included its coverage of transgender issues, the war in Gaza, and Trump’s presidency.
The most laughable element of the Politico story comes at the end where Honeycombe-Foster includes an opinion that portrays the BBC as unfairly biased to the right:
Ed Davey, leader of the centrist Liberal Democrats — who has himself taken repeated shots at the BBC and complained that it gives too much airtime to right-wing parties — called for the outfit to “turn a new leaf, rebuild trust and not give in to the likes of Nigel Farage who want to destroy it.”
Yup! It makes sense (at least to Politico). The same BBC whose bosses were forced to quit due to their organization doctoring clips of Trump somehow secretly leans to the right.
