Til Kingdom Come: Trump, Faith and Money, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Four, 22 January 2021

Complaint

A viewer complained that an extract from a speech by President Trump had been misleadingly edited and that, although the programme had been re-edited in response to his complaint, there had been no public acknowledgement of the error.Β  The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ’s standards of due accuracy and its Guidelines on correcting mistakes.


Outcome

As originally edited, President Trump was heard to say β€œThe United States will recognise Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel, including the West Bank described so vividly in the Bible”.Β  As the plan put forward by the US administration did not in fact propose Israeli sovereignty over the whole of the West Bank, the ECU agreed that the editing of his speech did not meet the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ’s standards of due accuracy.Β  It noted, however, that the topic of the US peace plan was remote from the programme’s main focus (which was on the relationship between a strand of American evangelical Christianity and support for Israel) and that the incorrect impression generated by the editing was unlikely to affect viewer’s understanding of it.Β  Consequently it judged that the re-editing of the programme was sufficient to resolve the issue of complaint.

Resolved