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.

In the United States, Trump waged open war on the free press. He labelled reporters "the enemy of the people" - the language of dictators.