'Our bad': BBC accused of fake news after it misheard Donald Trump declare war

The BBC has been accused of “fake news” after it tweeted an account of President Trump threatening war in Iran because a reporter misheard the word “more”.

The BBC’s world news Twitter account informed its 24 million followers that the President had told the UN General Assembly that “war will follow” his decision to re-impose sanctions in the country.

In fact, Pres Trump had said “more will follow”, with the member of staff behind the Twitter account being deluged with responses pointing out the error.

The tweet was not deleted for around 20 hours, as the BBC used the hashtag “#ourbad” to admit its mistake.

“It looks like we misheard the President,” it told one tweeter. “It was our bad and we've issued a clarification.”

In a second post, it wrote: “We've issued a clarification: @realDonaldTrump's actual words appear to be "more will follow". #ourbad”

In a third, they claimed it was “an #honestmistake”.

The corporation came in for particular criticism for leaving the original message and video up until the next day, as it circulated around the world.

It eventually told followers: “Yesterday, we inadvertently misreported a small section of the speech by @realDonaldTrump to the UN General Assembly.   

“We quickly linked a clarification to the offending tweet but the original tweet continues to be shared without our correction. So we have decided to delete it.”

The original message read: “Donald Trump tells UN General Assembly “war will follow” after his decision to re-impose sanctions on Iran, who he accuses of “slaughter in Syria and Yemen.”

The error comes as Lord Hall, the director-general, works to convince the public the BBC needs more money to continue its output in television, radio and online, heavily emphasising its trusted newsbrand.

In a speech to the Royal Television Society last week, he said: “The BBC is funded by the public and that gives it a special role in this community and a special responsibility. One that I think will be increasingly important.

“We have a duty to provide trusted, impartial news and information about the UK and the world.”

A spokesman for the BBC said: “Our approach is to be open and transparent on social media. As soon as we became aware that the tweet was inaccurate, we issued a clarification linked to it explaining our mistake.

"However, as the tweet continued to be shared without our clarification we deleted it earlier today and put out a tweet explaining what we had done.”