By Ghost Writer
By now, you probably know that US President Donald Trump is suing the BBC for about $5 billion over an edited version of a speech. That is roughly Sh645 billion — more than three times what the Kenyan government accepted from Vodafone for its stake in Safaricom.
Moral of the story is that sometimes the devil works in very unmysterious ways in the media business. He was clearly busy at the BBC, where some clever Einstein stitched together President Trump’s words in what is now shaping up to be one of the most expensive libel suits the corporation has ever faced.
How else do you explain this: In his speech on January 6, 2021, delivered before the riot at the US Capitol, Trump told the crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.” More than 50 minutes later, he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”
Days later, Trump’s speech reappeared on the BBC’s Panorama programme, this time with the devil’s dirty paws all over it. BBC viewers, readers and listeners were told Trump had said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.” That edit collapsed time, context, and meaning into a single, inflammatory statement.
Now, the devil is always at work in newsrooms — the same devil that turns “Head of the Civil Service” on raw copy into “Head of Pubic Service (sic)” in the next day’s paper. The same devil that transforms the well-intentioned headline “Politician in trouble for changing parties” into “Politician in trouble for changing panties.”
That same devil advised the BBC that instead of simply saying, Sorry, our editorial team messed up, it should issue something that sounded more like Sorry, but…
“The BBC acknowledged the edit had given the mistaken impression that Mr Trump had made a direct call for violent action but disagreed that there was a basis for a defamation claim,” the corporation said.
The devil also arranged that, even after this half-hearted apology, the BBC would appear to call Trump’s bluff. Instead of dispatching a delegation of English elders to the White House to quietly smoothen things out with Trump, the devil convinced the BBC to say: See you in court.
Then came the final act of abandonment. Downing Street, the BBC’s ultimate benefactor, tossed both baby and bathwater under the bus: “We will always defend the principle of a strong, independent BBC as a trusted and relied upon national broadcaster reporting without fear or favour. But it is vitally important that they act to maintain trust, correcting mistakes quickly when they occur,” said Downing Street’s spokesperson in a statement.
There are lessons here — lessons that every newsroom, especially in Kenya, must absorb in 2026. The most obvious one is that that media houses must be more careful while editing speeches made by our politicians and which are growing louder and more reckless every day. The gatekeepers must be especially vigilant with all stories sourced from “videos circulating online.”
It is becoming increasingly clear that mainstream media is outsourcing news gathering to anonymous social media footage. But we must start asking loudly the uncomfortable question: Is news today simply a laundering of yesterday’s gossip? Has a new formula for generating stories in our newsroom become S = (G + P) × X (Where S is story, G is gossip, P is pictures, and X is the number of times a video clip has been shared online)?
