Two senior bosses at the BBC have resigned after criticism of the broadcaster's editing of a speech by US President Donald Trump.
The BBC said director-general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness both announced their resignations on Sunday.
Britain's public broadcaster has been criticised for editing a speech Mr Trump delivered on January 6, 2021, before protesters attacked the US Capitol in Washington.
Critics said the way the speech was edited for a BBC documentary was misleading and cut out a section where Mr Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
In a letter to staff, Mr Davie said quitting the job after five years was "entirely my decision".
"Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director-general I have to take ultimate responsibility," Mr Davie said.
He said he was "working through exact timings with the Board to allow for an orderly transition to a successor over the coming months".
Turness said the controversy about the Trump documentary had "reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC — an institution that I love".
"In public life leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down," she said in a note to staff.
"As the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, the buck stops with me.
"While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted on X, posting a screenshot of an article headlined '"Trump goes to war with 'fake news' BBC' " beside another about Mr Davie's resignation, with the words "shot" and "chaser".
Pressure on the broadcaster's top executives has been growing since The Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK published parts of a dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, who had been hired to advise the BBC on standards and guidelines.
As well as the Trump edit, it criticised the BBC's coverage of transgender issues and raised concerns of anti-Israeli bias in the BBC's Arabic service.
The BBC faces greater scrutiny than other broadcasters — and criticism from its commercial rivals — because of its status as a national institution funded through an annual licence fee of 174.50 pounds ($354) paid by all households with a television.
It also is bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial in its output, and critics are quick to point out when they think it has failed.
The BBC has also been criticised from all angles over its coverage of the Gaza war.
In February, the BBC removed a documentary about Gaza from its streaming service after it emerged the child narrator was the son of an official in the Hamas-led government.
Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said the BBC was full of "institutional bias", and "the new leadership must now deliver genuine reform of the culture of the BBC, top to bottom".
Lisa Nandy, the minister in charge of media in Britain's centre-left Labour government, thanked Mr Davie for his work and said the government would help the BBC secure "its role at the heart of national life for decades to come".
AP
