BBC faces UK parliament heat over Trump 'scandal'

LONDON: The BBC's chairman acknowledged Monday that it was too slow in responding over a misleading edit of a speech by US President Donald Trump but rejected claims that the broadcaster's impartiality was being undermined from within its own board.Senior BBC leaders were quizzed by Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee amid a major crisis at the publicly funded corporation after its director general and head of news both quit earlier this month and Trump threatened to file a billion-dollar lawsuit."I think there's an issue about how quickly we respond ... why do we take so much time?" he told lawmakers Monday. "We should have pursued it to the end and got to the bottom of it, and not wait, as we did, till it became public discourse."The BBC said last week that Shah sent a letter to the White House saying that he and the corporation were sorry for the edit.On Monday, Shah also defended board member Robbie Gibb, a nonexecutive directorwho has been the subject of wide scrutiny. Critics have accused Gibb of pro-Conservative Party bias.