The BBC coverage of Alex Pretti's shooting is (a) lacking in fact-checking and analysis and (b) biased. This is contrary to Art 6(1) of the BBC Charter which states that "the BBC should provide duly accurate and impartial news" and that it "should offer a … depth of analysis … not widely available from other United Kingdom news providers".
Lack of analysis: At 2142 on 2026-01-24, the BBC posted an report attributed to David Willis in which it was stated that there were "sharply contrasting narratives". This post also repeated the Trump Admin's line regarding a "massacre" of local law enforcement agents without evaluation or analysis.
This lack of analysis of the true facts of the situation continued despite the BBC having access to verified video footage. Fact-checking is a core goal of the BBC and this is a task for which BBC Verify was set up. BBC Verify had made a single post at 1858 on 2026-01-24 stating that further analysis was needed. No further analysis was posted. As late as 0509 on 2026-01-25, the BBC was still maintaining that there were "conflicting" accounts of the death, with no analysis of the facts by BBC Verify or anyone else.
Bias: As noted, the BBC uncritically reported the views of Trump Admin officials. This continued throughout their reporting. At 2317 on 2026-01-24, the BBC posted a "recap" in which two of the key points were one-sentence summaries of two Democrat politicians' statements and the remaining five were un-analysed quotations from Kristi Noem's statement.
Despite this, at 0235 on 2026-01-25, the BBC posted an edited summary of the statement by Alex Pretti's parents. This omitted the passage from the full statement in which they challenge the Trump Admin's account of events (beginning "The sickening lies …").
To edit Pretti's parents' criticism of the Trump Admin whilst uncritically reporting the Trump Admin statements is a clear example of bias. This is unacceptable, particularly with the BBC facing a lawsuit from Pres Trump.
This was sent to the BBC via their online complaints form at around 3 p.m. GMT on 25 January 2026.