Furthermore, the person in charge acknowledged other errors by the channel in covering other high-profile cases, such as information on the number of victims in the Gaza Strip, indicating that “the measures adopted in these areas have varied from the publication of corrections and clarifications to the issuance of new editorial guidelines”.
In this sense, he showed the BBC’s “commitment to continuous improvement” and maintained that “sometimes errors are specific and other times they can indicate underlying problems”, so, he maintained, “the work is never finished”.
As for other criticized elements, such as the company’s Arabic service, which is accused of following an editorial line distant from the BBC’s parent company and with an alleged bias in favor of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, Shah maintained that measures had been taken.
“The BBC’s Arabic team has been restructured, a new head of Arabic language editorial quality and standards has been appointed at the world service and a new social media investigation unit has been created to verify those who appear on the service,” he said, responding to the recurring appearance of sources linked in some way to Hamas.
Regarding a hypothetical complaint by Trump against the BBC, Shah, in an interview broadcast by the network shortly after the release of the statement, said he had no knowledge, but acknowledged that the American leader “is a very controversial individual”, so the network must “be prepared for any scenario”.
Shah also denied any “systemic bias” by the BBC as suggested in Prescott’s memo, something he said was “far from reality”.
However, he stated that several issues raised in the document had been taken into account and that measures were being taken in this regard.
“The DNA and culture of the BBC is impartiality”, he stressed.
The case led to the resignation, on Sunday, of the director of BBC News, Deborah Turness, and the director general of the BBC, Tim Davie.
Turness told journalists today that “the station is not institutionally biased, which is why it is the most trusted news source in the world”, adding that “mistakes have been made, but there is no institutional bias”.
Donald Trump celebrated on Sunday the dismissal of those responsible, whom he called “corrupt journalists”.
“They are very dishonest people who tried to influence the outcome of the presidential elections. As if that weren’t enough, they are from a foreign country, which many consider our number one ally. How terrible for democracy!”, he added.