Trump targets the BBC's trust issues

WHEN Donald Trump's press secretary feels able to brand the BBC “100% fake news”, something has gone badly wrong, and the BBC must shoulder part of the blame.

- CHRISTOPHER BUCKTIN

The BBC's HQ in London

The Trump speech edit was sloppy, unnecessary and inexplicable.

It handed the president a gift.

The organisation hesitated, failed to explain itself and allowed an error to balloon into a full-scale crisis that has now cost the Director-General and the head of BBC News their jobs.

The BBC should have owned up to the mistake immediately, instead of leaving a vacuum that others would happily fill.

But to stop the story here is to miss the larger danger. Because what Trump is doing is not righteous outrage. It is not a defence of truth. It is a tactic he has deployed for nearly a decade: to intimidate, discredit, and dismantle news organisations that refuse to bend to his will.