"To confront Donald Trump is to engage in asymmetric warfare. It is to enter a battlefield that is not level, where he enjoys an immediate and in-built advantage over those who would oppose him or merely hold him to account. That fact has cost Democrats dearly over the past decade exacting a toll again this very week but it has now upended an institution central to Britain's national life: namely, the BBC."
"The key asymmetry can be spelled out simply. Trump pays little or no regard to the conventional bounds of truth or honesty. His documented tally of false or misleading statements runs into the tens of thousands: the Washington Post registered 30,573 such statements during Trump's first term in the White House, an average of 21 a day. In a single interview with CBS's 60 Minutes earlier this month, Trump spoke falsely 18 times, according to CNN."
"So when the BBC's Panorama programme examined Trump's record ahead of the 2024 election, it had to be right on every detail. As we now know, and for which the BBC has apologised, it was not: it stitched together two statements, made 54 minutes apart, from Trump's speech ahead of the Capitol Hill riot of 6 January 2021 to create a single, seamless call for violence."
Confronting Donald Trump creates an asymmetric contest because he routinely disregards conventional bounds of truth. The Washington Post recorded 30,573 false or misleading statements during his first term, averaging 21 a day, and CNN counted 18 falsehoods in a single 60 Minutes interview. Critics and institutions must be impeccably accurate when challenging him, or face reputational damage. The BBC's Panorama programme apologised after it stitched together two statements, made 54 minutes apart, from Trump's 6 January 2021 speech to create a single call for violence. That dynamic has penalised Democrats and undermined trust in scrutiny.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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