President Trump filed his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC just hours before Britain’s government began on Tuesday a once-a-decade review of the broadcaster’s royal charter, which first set out its journalistic mission 98 years ago.
The timing is hardly a coincidence.
Mr. Trump and his conservative allies in Britain have long targeted the BBC for what they consider to be its liberal bias. The broadcaster’s critics, and its commercial rivals, have spent years waging a campaign to put ideological pressure on the news organization and to disrupt its public funding.
In his lawsuit, Mr. Trump continued that pressure, saying the BBC “intentionally and maliciously sought to fully mislead its viewers around the world by splicing together two entirely separate parts of President Trump’s speech” on the day that rioters supporting Mr. Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election attacked the U.S. Capitol.
The attacks on the BBC’s integrity and credibility contained in the president’s lawsuit are likely to be a difficult backdrop to the organization’s effort to renew its charter for another 10 years. The charter, which is the constitutional basis for the BBC, sets out its mission, purpose, and — crucially — how it is financed.
That process began on Tuesday with the government’s publication of a “green paper” designed to prompt discussion about what changes to the charter might be made, especially given the rapid technological changes that have taken place since the last charter was approved. The government will hold hearings and consider changes to how the BBC is operated.
Lisa Nandy, a Labour lawmaker who is Britain’s culture secretary, said in a statement that the BBC “must remain fiercely independent, accountable and be able to command public trust.”
The current BBC charter expires at the end of 2027, and Ms. Nandy pledged that the multiyear review will be a “catalyst that helps the BBC adapt to a rapidly changing media landscape and secures its role at the heart of national life.”
The BBC gets most of its money from a license fee that is charged annually to any British household with a television. It is currently 174.50 British pounds, the equivalent of about $234, and raises about £3.8 billion each year. That is about 65 percent of the BBC’s budget.
The public nature of the BBC’s finances could make it more difficult for the organization to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit with a payment to him, as several news organizations in the United States have done. ABC paid the president $16 million to settle a similar lawsuit.
Tim Davie, the director-general of the BBC, who announced last month that he would resign amid the crisis over the edits to Mr. Trump’s speech, said in a statement on Tuesday that the organization welcomes the start of what he called a “public consultation” on the future of the BBC.
“At the BBC, we want change, so we can continue to deliver for the U.K. for generations to come,” he said. “We want to secure a public service BBC that is independent, sustainably funded for the long term, and meets our audience’s needs.”
The organization has also said it will defend itself against Mr. Trump’s lawsuit. On Tuesday, it repeated that stance in a statement and said it would not comment further on continuing legal proceedings.
The BBC has repeatedly apologized for the editing of Mr. Trump’s speech, but it refused to pay the president monetary damages and has insisted that the broadcaster does not suffer from institutional bias.
“While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim,” the network wrote in a statement after Mr. Trump’s legal threat last month.
The BBC has argued that the editing of the speech in a documentary shown just before the 2024 election, while an error, was not done with malice, which Mr. Trump would have to prove to win a defamation lawsuit. It has also questioned whether Mr. Trump was harmed by the documentary, given it was only broadcast in Britain, not in the United States, and he was re-elected soon after.
Michael D. Shear is a senior Times correspondent covering British politics and culture, and diplomacy around the world.
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