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The author of the leaked 'BBC bias' memo, seized on by President Donald Trump to threaten a billion-dollar lawsuit against the broadcaster, is a right-wing lobbyist whose firm is being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by US tech and media giants with close ties to Trump, to whom they have donated millions.
One of them, Oracle, is owned by a Republican Party mega-donor who in November 2020 spoke with Trump aides about delegitimising the US elections - and who is actively seeking to reshape the US media landscape to benefit the President.
The lobbyist, Michael Prescott, was reportedly appointed to the BBC advisory position under the influence of BBC Board member Sir Robbie Gibb, a co-founder and early fundraiser of the pro-Trump TV news station GB News co-owned by hedge fund multimillionaire Paul Marshall. Earlier this year, Marshall called for the BBC to be dismantled.
The revelations raise questions about whether a network of Trump-aligned interests helped engineer the BBC's worst governance crisis in a decade.
Crisis or Coup?
When President Donald Trump threatened to sue the BBC for a billion dollars over its recent Panorama documentary, he accused the corporation of "malicious defamation" for editing parts of his address on 6 January 2021, the day his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
The row was triggered by The Telegraph's publication of a 39-page leaked 'memo', alleging that the Panorama edit exemplified "progressive bias" across the BBC's output.
Under intensifying political pressure, BBC chair Samir Shah apologised for what he called an "error of judgment," shortly after director-general Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness resigned in the ensuing crisis.
But the man behind the memo is far from a neutral auditor. Michael Prescott is a right-wing lobbyist working as a managing director for nearly a decade at Hanover Communications, a firm with longstanding Conservative Party ties.
Byline Times can reveal that Hanover Communications has been paid at least half a million dollars by four American media and technology corporations whose founders and executives are closely tied to Donald Trump.
According to official EU and UK lobbying disclosures seen by Byline Times, Prescott's firm represents Oracle, Apple, Meta and Paramount - a roster that spans the core of Big Tech, US entertainment and news media. The latest filings show payments in the six-figure range for the last financial year, covering both regulatory lobbying in Brussels and political communications in Westminster.
The new evidence suggests that Prescott's memo lends weight to the concerns of BBC insiders that its use was choreographed as part of a wider attack on the corporation by forces aligned with the US President.
EXCLUSIVE
The Pro-Trump Bias of the 'Neutral' Sources in the Leaked BBC 'Prescott Dossier'
Byline Times' analysis of key sources in the memo about the BBC's alleged 'progressive bias' shows it relied on highly partisan right-wing, Trump-aligned organisations
Nafeez Ahmed
Oracle and the Emerging Pro-Trump Media Empire
Michael Prescott, author of the BBC memo, has been managing director of Hanover Communications, a major British lobbying firm, since 2017.
Leading the list of American tech giants for which Hanover is lobbying is Oracle, whose billionaire founder Larry Ellison - a major Trump ally and Republican Party megadonor - is spearheading a conservative-leaning US media empire, including being in pole position for the purchase of the US version of TikTok.
On 14 November 2020, the Washington Post reported, Ellison joined a strategy call with Trump aides aimed at overturning the legitimate result of the 2020 US national elections. This was less than a week after Trump experienced stunning defeats in Republican strongholds Arizona and Georgia.
Oracle's EU filings disclose $1...