LONDON

The outgoing BBC director general said he was “very, very proud” of BBC journalists a day after US President Donald Trump threatened to sue the corporation for $1 billion.

Speaking briefly to reporters outside BBC headquarters in London on Tuesday morning, Tim Davie said: “I’m here to lead and support the BBC. I’m very, very proud of our journalists in this building. The BBC is going to be thriving and I support everyone on the team. I want to thank every one of them. They’re doing a wonderful job.”

Davie addressed all BBC staff in an online call, opening with an acknowledgment of what he described as a “very tough” period for the organization.

He then sought to rally employees, referring to the “enemies” of the BBC and the “weaponization” of its mistakes.

“These times are difficult for the BBC but we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It’s our narrative. We own things,” he said.

Davie noted that he had heard staff calls to defend their journalism.

“I see the free press under pressure. I see the weaponization. I think we have to fight for our journalism,” he said. “We have made some mistakes that have cost us but we need to fight for that.”

In Britain, the BBC’s operations are supported by a TV license fee paid by the public. The outlet, a longtime institution with a storied past, has faced much criticism from the Conservative Party and the right side of the political spectrum.

The controversy comes at a bad time for the BBC, which is due to renegotiate its charter with the government, including such issues as the rules it must follow and how it is funded.

Editing gave ‘impression of violent call to action’ by Trump in January 2021

Davie and the BBC’s head of news, Deborah Turness, announced their resignations on Sunday after days of pressure sparked by a leaked memo written by Michael Prescott, a former adviser to the national broadcaster.

The memo made a series of claims, including that a 2024 documentary had misleadingly edited a speech by Trump.

On Monday, BBC Chair Samir Shah apologized for what he called the documentary’s “error of judgement,” saying that splicing parts of Trump’s speech together “did give the impression of a direct call for violent action” concerning the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

Trump’s legal team has written to the BBC, giving the corporation until Friday to apologize and “appropriately compensate” him. Trump is known for aggressively suing news outlets whose coverage he disagrees with, including US networks CBS and ABC, which both gave the president millions of dollars in settlements.

Meanwhile, Nigel Huddleston, the opposition Conservatives’ shadow culture secretary, said the BBC should prostrate itself to Trump over the broadcast.

Huddleston told GB News: “Well, with a big apology and grovel because they were wrong, and Donald Trump has a perfectly legitimate concern here. It wasn’t ‘could be perceived’ to be misleading, it transparently was.”

Echoing the points made by Prescott, Huddleston added that the editing error was not the only problem with the documentary about Trump.