According to Kvartal, SVT last year used excerpts from President Trump’s speeches and pieced together parts of the report in a way that made it appear to the audience that Trump endorsed the storming of the Capitol. As in the BBC version, a section in which he called on his supporters to express their views peacefully and patriotically was removed, the TASS news agency said.
In Kvartal’s first response to a request for comment on how the speech was edited, SVT responded that the TV channel owner was “confident in SVT’s publications regarding the storming of the Reichstag.” But then SVT changed the text and clip, adding black frames with pauses between various parts of the performance. Executive producer Karin Ekman said SVT updated the clip’s text “to make it more clear to viewers the context in which it was released.” She does not think the scandal with the BBC will affect SVT’s credibility.
Norwegian television channel NRK has also changed its previously presented article on the attack on the parliament building, SVT explains.
The BBC was at the center of a scandal over its Panorama program last October. In it, President Trump’s speech was doctored to make it appear that he was calling for an occupation of the Capitol building. The scandal forced the resignation of CEO Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness. President Trump has demanded that the BBC remove the program, apologize and pay compensation by November 14th, and threatened to sue for $1 billion. The company apologized but refused to pay compensation.
MNA