It was the biggest scoop of 2025: the BBC’s doctoring of a speech by Donald Trump that led to the resignations of the BBC director-general and head of news as well as a $10 billion lawsuit. Gordon Rayner was the reporter who broke this story and others during a year in which he came up with brilliant exclusives, told in part through video content that has been viewed 8 million times.

Other highlights included Gordon’s investigation into the Air India crash

With many news organisations employing media correspondents to land big stories about the BBC and other major players, Gordon beat them all to the one story that really mattered. A leaked internal memo yielded a series of stories that were followed up around the world, including in the Middle East, where the BBC’s Arabic service came under intense scrutiny over its alleged anti-Israeli bias.

After being handed an internal memo that detailed shortcomings and failings BBC bosses were well aware of, Gordon set about investigating the facts behind the issues it highlighted, then presented them in a series of articles and videos that were devastating to the BBC hierarchy and forced the BBC to confront its own internal bias.

On Trump, Gordon sourced the original Panorama documentary and worked with the Telegraph’s video team to produce a side-by-side comparison of what Trump actually said and what the edited Panorama documentary had made him seem to say - that he wanted his supporters to go to the Capitol with him and “fight like hell”.

On BBC Arabic, Gordon tracked down video material of Hamas supporters being used as contributors, and on the issue of transgender coverage he lifted the lid on internal censorship at the BBC.

The videos that Gordon made were shared on social media all over the world, and Donald Trump launched a $10billion lawsuit against the BBC for defamation, which is scheduled to start in February 2027. Samir Shah, the BBC chairman, was among those called to Parliament to give evidence to MPs as a result of Gordon’s reporting.

Gordon showed the breadth of his reporting with his investigation into the Air India disaster, including new details of how aircraft faults, not pilot “suicide” may have caused the crash, and a deep dive into the links between West Midlands Police and local Muslim organisations that preceded the ban on Tel Aviv fans.

Gordon’s reporting, and particularly his videos, reached millions of people, many of whom are likely to have been engaging with the Telegraph’s journalism for the first time, especially those in younger age groups. Hundreds of people took out digital subscriptions to the Telegraph in order to read Gordon’s articles, which have also had a lasting impact on the strength of the Telegraph brand in the US, a part of the world in which expansion is an important part of the Telegraph’s future plans.

President Trump personally thanked the Telegraph for its reporting, and the defamation trial next year will bring renewed interest in the Telegraph stories broken by Gordon.

Return to Case Studies