John Simpson, the BBC’s World Affairs Editor, posted a boast on X this morning about the BBC:
Nowhere in the hysterical pile-on against the BBC in the British press has anyone mentioned that BBC News now has 77 million viewers & listeners in the US and has established itself as the second most trusted news source there.
— John Simpson (@JohnSimpsonNews) November 11, 2025
Guido’s Verify service began examining the claims. No need, Simpson debunked himself…
Within hours he posted an apology:
“It’s apologising season. The audience for BBC output in the US is just over 40 million, not 77 million as I said. That’s the figure for the Americas as a whole. But the BBC is indeed the second most trusted news source in the US.”
The original tweet was seen over 300,000 times. Half-right is good enough for the BBC…
Simpson’s boast about the BBC’s viewership in the US may also be seen as unhelpful seeing as one key point Trump will have to prove is that the miselading Panorama programme was viewable in Florida. D’oh!
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”