A BBC board member is the latest to resign from the broadcaster amid the backlash to a documentary that President Donald Trump plans to sue over.
Shumeet Banerji, a tech investor who’s served as a non-executive board member since 2022, cited “governance issues” and noted he was “not consulted” about the events that led to two top news executives resigning, the BBC shared Friday.
Banerji did not immediately respond to requests for comment on his decision. On its website, the BBC described him as being “responsible for upholding and protecting the independence of the BBC by acting in the public interest and exercising independent judgement.”
His departure comes a week after Trump said he would likely sue the BBC for up to $5 billion after the news organization apologized for the way it edited a Trump speech that appeared in a documentary that aired a week before the 2024 presidential election.
The clips of Trump’s remarks, delivered just before rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were spliced together in a way that suggested Trump said he was going to walk to the Capitol with his supporters to “fight like hell.” In actuality, Trump said he would walk with his supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” only calling on them later to “fight like hell.”
Shortly after the edited clip was highlighted in a dossier from a former external BBC advisor and reported by The Telegraph on Nov. 3, two top BBC executives ― Director-General Tim Davie and news CEO Deborah Turness ― both announced they would leave the corporation, with Davie saying “there have been some mistakes made” and Turness saying leaders like herself should be held “fully accountable” for significant errors.
Turness, however, added that “recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong.”
In the BBC’s apology to Trump last week, it said it had no plans to rebroadcast the documentary and did not believe the incident was grounds for a lawsuit.
“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,” a spokesperson said.
The BBC issued its statement after Trump’s lawyers demanded the broadcaster apologize, retract the documentary and provide him with compensation for the “overwhelming reputational and financial harm” the documentary allegedly caused him.
Trump vowed to proceed with legal action after his demands were not met.
“We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1 billion and $5 billion, probably sometime next week,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One last Friday.