How the BBC censored the line that Trump is “the most openly corrupt president in American history”
This sentence was cut from the broadcast of the 2025 Reith Lectures for "legal reasons" - but do those supposed legal reasons make sense?
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s Reith Lectures are prestigious things, a highlight of the broadcasting year.
The 2025 lecturer is Rutger Bregman.
The first of this year’s lectures is available to listen here and there is a BBC transcript of that lecture here.
But there is something missing from the broadcast lecture and the transcript.
The broadcast lecture and the published transcript are not a complete and accurate record of what was actually said.
What is missing - edited out by the BBC - is a single line.
The line is that Donald Trump is “the most openly corrupt president in American history”.
As a special treat for those who are kind enough to pay for subscriptions for this blog, I have a close look below at those “legal reasons” from an English media law perspective.
Are those legal reasons, to use a technical legal phrase, BS?