When the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) bends a knee to Donald Trump, we should all sit up and take notice.
It came to my attention this afternoon that BBC Radio 4 censored a sentence out of a Reith Lectures presentation by Rutger Bregman. The BBC invited Mr. Bregman to give a series of lectures in the highly-touted Reith Lectures. The Reith Lectures have a 77-year history and have been known for being champions of free expression.
According to https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/v78MKsCWHxw0l0PwMn4R0R/bbc-reith-lectures-2025-moral-revolution, “The Reith Lectures were inaugurated in 1948 by the BBC to mark the historic contribution made to public service broadcasting by Sir John (later Lord) Reith, the corporation’s first director-general.
“John Reith maintained that broadcasting should be a public service which enriches the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. It is in this spirit that the BBC each year invites a leading figure to deliver a series of lectures on radio. The aim is to advance public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest.”
Writer and historian Rutger Bregman was invited to deliver a series of four lectures for the 2025 Reith Lectures in London, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and the United States. Under the umbrella theme of Moral Revolution, his four lectures were “A Time of Monsters,” “How To Start a Moral Revolution,” “A Conspiracy of Decency,” and “Fighting for Humanity in the Age of the Machine.”
On November 25, 2025, Mr. Bregman (@rutgerbregman) posted on Instagram his shock that BBC Radio 4 removed a sentence from the broadcast of a lecture he delivered a month ago.
I quote from @rutgerbregman on Instagram
Mr. Bregman wrote on @rutgerbregman on Instagram: “The BBC has decided to censor the opening lecture of a series they invited me to deliver. They removed the sentence in which I describe Donald Trump as ‘the most openly corrupt president in American history.’
“This line was taken out of a lecture they commissioned, reviewed through the full editorial process, and recorded four weeks ago in front of 500 people in the BBC Radio Theatre.
“I was told the decision came from the highest levels within the BBC.
“This has happened against my wishes, and I’m deeply troubled by it. Not because people can’t disagree with my words, but because self-censorship driven by fear (Trump is threatening to sue the BBC) should concern all of us.
“This isn’t about left or right. It’s about the health of our democratic institutions. For decades the Reith Lectures have been one of the BBC’s most important platforms for open debate and free expression. That’s why this really matters.
“In this video, I explain what happened, why it’s important, and why we should remain calm but clear-eyed about the pressures facing our public institutions.
“I share this with respect for the many excellent journalists at the BBC. And with the hope that transparency helps strengthen, not weaken, our democratic culture.”
In Mr. Bregman’s Instagram video clip
In Mr. Bregman’s video on Instagram, he explains that the irony is that the title of his lecture was “A Time of Monsters.” The lecture was about the cowardice of today’s elites and elitist institutions – “bending the knee to authoritarianism.”
In the video on Instagram, Bregman said, “They deleted the sentence in which I said, ‘Donald Trump is the most openly corrupt president in American history.’”
He said, “It was a defensible and plausible statement. It’s well known that Donald Trump and his family are personally profiting from the presidency to a degree we haven’t seen before. According to a major investigation in The New Yorker published last August, the total gain, the personal gains, already exceed roughly $3.5 billion from real estate deals to meme coins.”
Mr. Bregman went on to say that this isn’t about him – “It’s about something much bigger. When institutions start censoring themselves, because they’re scared of those in power, that is the moment we all need to pay attention. Democracies don’t collapse overnight. They gradually erode in acts of fear. Let’s not be afraid to name what’s happening, and let’s not be afraid to tell the truth.”
In closing
I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I’ll just leave it for you to draw your own conclusions about the state of the world.
I wish my fellow Americans a Happy Thanksgiving Day tomorrow.
Janet
Janet's Writing Blog 
Thanks for the background to the headlines. I was only familiar with the headlines. There is no level/country/institution that Trump does not strive to control.
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I just happened upon it this afternoon. Edward Ortiz commented with a little more info on my “I’m back!” post from Monday. He said a couple of BBC executives resigned and he thinks the UK government is going to step in “to get them back on track.”
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Too much to hope the US government might do likewise… Happy Thanksgiving, Janet.
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Right. Happy Thanksgiving, Pat.
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I thought I’d read an earlier news story that the BBC was standing up to Trump’s threat of a lawsuit. I guess not. How demoralizing. This coming after the news that two National Guard soldiers have been shot and killed in DC. I despair.
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I heard the two Guardsmen are in critical condition. I pray they survive. How tragic! Now, in response, Trump is turning on all immigrants. In his statement a few minutes ago he went after the “Somalis” in Minnesota. They had nothing to do with what happened in DC today! The shooter was Afghan. One more excuse for Trump to deport everyone who wasn’t born here… and some who were. And today he called the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial “Biden filth.” It was built in 1923. Duh!
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To be fair to the BBC, they are supposed to remain impartial, unlike most news outlets, and they are currently under heavy criticism for bias of all kinds, not just Trump. They’re in a major storm over here and I can see why they’re battening down the hatches. They’ve been veering towards taking political stances on all kinds of things, which is absolutely against their charter, and have been pulled up sharp by a variety of scandals recently. It’s not really Trump they’re afraid of – it’s Brits and British politicians. Their charter is up for renewal soon, and there’s a growing sector of the British public who feel that if they are not going to be impartial they should not be funded through the licence fee, which after all is paid only by Brits and is largely compulsory. In fact, many people, including myself, think they have become unhealthily obsessed by American politics, to the detriment of coverage of British, European and other areas. I think they’ll soon have a complete change of leadership – this lot have failed pretty badly – and we’ll see how it goes then. But they do still intend to fight the lawsuit, if it happens.
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It seems there have been many conflicting reports about the two Guardsmen. I hope they are still alive and will survive. My immediate reaction to the news was that the White House is behind the shooting.
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Thank you for the clarification. I obviously have not been keeping up with the problems at the BBC. It struck me as censorship of a lecturer who have been invited. From what I read, he was sounding a warning about authoritarianism. It seems like the BBC would have known what to expect from his series — but I’m way on the outside looking in at the last minute. I appreciate your giving me this background information. I hope the BBC ship will be righted when all this is settled. When my sister and I visited Scotland, we were impressed by the in-depth reporting by the BBC. I remember we commented about how the BBC gave 10 minutes of news coverage to stories that US news networks would give one or two minutes to. We felt like the BBC gave a more overall report on world news items than we were getting over here. I can see that people in the UK would be tiring of the BBC’s coverage of US politics if it is to the extreme. My hunch is that the BBC is still in shock (as half of America is) that Donald Trump was elected once, much less for a second time — and he is doing so much every single day to destroy the old world order that the BBC fells compelled to report it. It is overwhelming. We get very little world news over here now, because Trump’s endless overreach of presidential authority is like nothing our country has ever seen before. Thank you again for sharing the British perspective on the state of affairs concerning the BBC.
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Yes, anything to keep us all out of kilter. Everything is shocking, but nothing is surprising.
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I agree with you, but I think the BBC is trying to get out of hot water after they edited Trump’s January speech. They tried to make it look worse than it already was, and I’m not sure why they did that, ratings and money are my guess. I read in The Economist that people in the UK are a bit upset with the BBC because it focuses too much on the US instead of the UK, especially since UK citizens are the ones paying for it. I think news companies are so obsessed with Trump that they’re taking shortcuts, which makes no sense because straightforward reporting is enough to highlight the issues with this administration.
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I suspect the BBC are erring on the side of caution more than usual with the threat of lawsuits concerning Trump… the world continues to spin a little too erratically for me.
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After my blog post, I heard from a blogger in Scotland who said pretty much what you stated, Edward. It seems the BBC has become obsessed with Trump to the detriment of giving UK and other world news. I hope they can get back on track as the gold standard in journalism that I’ve thought they were. You are absolutely right… there’s no reason to embellish reporting on what Trump is doing or saying. Straightforward factual reporting should be enough to cause his downfall. His behavior would have been the undoing of any other US President in our history — and, hopefully, any President in our future.
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Yes, from some of the feedback I’m getting, I think you are correct. I hope the BBC gets back on track soon. I understand now that they are losing some of their credibility in the UK because they’re giving Trump too much publicity to the detriment of covering UK and other world news. Trump is a danger to world peace, but the BBC should not become obsessed in giving him undue attention.
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I hope so too, because it’s important that these news organizations continue their journalism to keep politicians and others accountable. The sad part, and what really upsets me, is that the behavior of BBC, CBS, and others is feeding his narrative about fake news.
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Yes. And a decreasing percentage of Americans are following the news at all now.
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I don’t think there’s much issue with that because it’s still important news. What they are really giving too much publicity to is his buddy Farage and his political party which will drag the UK down to Trump’s level. Which is really concerning because as they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity… the more they get, the more likely they are to actually be voted in, which is a terrifying thought.
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That is indeed terrifying! As I sit here in North Carolina, I’m not expecting the UK to save America. I just want the UK to continue to stand strong and with integrity after America collapses. There are so many evil people in charge here now, I don’t know how we can ever get back to where we were a year ago — or for the first 71 years of my life. America was never perfect, but the majority of Americans used to know right from wrong and strive for the common good. We were always for the underdog. Trump’s level of self-aggrandizement is off the charts. His hatred for everyone who isn’t white, male, and rich is beyond disgusting. Putting his name and image on everything imaginable. His mental capabilities were never strong, but they seem to deteriorate by the day. Changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War! I’ll never call it that! Sending masked thugs out to harass and arrest anyone who doesn’t have white skin or who speaks with a Spanish accent… anyone they think might be from Somalia… it is horrifying. Indigenous Americans have even been accosted by ICE and Border Patrol agents. U.S. citizens are getting detained until they can prove their citizenship status. I do not recognize my country. I had no idea until last year’s election that there were so many hateful, ignorant people in America. What you said about bad publicity certainly has been true for Trump. It doesn’t matter what he says or does or who reports it, his base/cult followers seem to just love him more. I think they must be miserable human beings to take such joy in the suffering of others.
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