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See all the news storiesIn November 2025, the BBC removed a single sentence “the most openly corrupt president in American history” from historian Rutger Bregman’s Reith Lecture. The BBC had commissioned the lecture, put it through full editorial review, and recorded it in front of 500 people. Four weeks later, one line was cut. The BBC confirmed the decision was made after receiving legal advice, with a spokesperson saying: “It is standard practice that programmes will reflect the legal advice they’re given.”1
The BBC then told its own journalists they couldn’t repeat the removed line, even in coverage of the censorship story itself. A presenter on BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show told listeners: “For legal reasons, we’re not able to tell you what that line is.” Bregman’s response was measured but pointed: “If BBC journalists are not allowed to mention a sentence in a story about censorship, then the problem is far bigger than one line in my lecture. That is precisely the dynamic my first Reith lecture describes: institutions censoring themselves out of fear of those in power.” 2
What makes the case striking isn’t the scale of the threat—no lawsuit had been filed over this lecture. It’s the fact that a statement the BBC’s own editors had approved, reviewed, and recorded was removed not because it was wrong, but because defending it carried a financial cost the BBC deemed too high. And that’s at one of the world’s best-resourced broadcasters, with its own legal team and the institutional weight to fight most challenges. For independent production companies, smaller publishers, and documentary makers without that institutional weight behind them, the decision is made far quicker.
The BBC case is visible because Bregman went public. Most of what’s being suppressed isn’t. UNESCO’s World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development Report, published in early 2026, found that self-censorship among journalists rose 63% between 2022 and 2025.3 That figure doesn’t capture stories that were never pitched, investigations that editors declined to commission, or documentaries that never made it to a broadcaster because the production company couldn’t get legal clearance. It represents only the cases where journalists who went ahead still chose to hold back.
The RSF World Press Freedom Index 2025 classified global press freedom as a “difficult situation” for the first time in history, with the financial conditions indicator at an all-time low.4 Nearly nine in ten countries surveyed reported media outlets struggling financially, with almost a third experiencing outright closures. When newsrooms are cutting staff and margins are thin, the stories that require expensive legal clearance are the first to go. Editors don’t announce that decision. The story simply doesn’t get commissioned.
The UK compounds this further. Its defamation laws place the burden of proof on the defendant, and London remains an attractive venue for wealthy claimants seeking to impose maximum cost. The RSF noted the UK’s economic indicator as its weakest, with job losses and declining profitability already squeezing editorial budgets before litigation risk is even factored in.5 Put financial pressure and legal exposure together and the stories that don’t get written aren’t exceptional cases. They’re a daily editorial reality.
The question editors have to face—can we afford to defend this?—is one the insurance market exists to help answer. Media professional indemnity insurance covers defamation, privacy violations, copyright infringement, and breach of licence. But the more important work happens before any claim is made.
When a production company or publisher brings a potentially contentious project to an insurer, the evaluation process involves close collaboration with specialist media lawyers to assess defamation risk, check that privacy concerns have been addressed properly, and form a view on whether the journalism meets the standards required for responsible reporting. That process doesn’t just decide whether the risk is insurable. It tells the production company whether the story is defensible. Understanding that difference is often what allows a project to proceed rather than being shelved.
That process also strengthens the journalism. It ensures stories are factually grounded, that subjects have been given a right of reply, and that the reporting can be defended if it’s challenged. A production company that comes to a broadcaster with that clearance already in place is in a much stronger position than one that can’t demonstrate it.
Major broadcasters including the BBC, Channel 4, Le Monde, and the New York Times require production companies to carry errors and omissions coverage before they’ll commission or broadcast investigative content. That requirement protects the broadcaster from having claims passed back to them, enforces the standards that insurers require through the legal review process, and means smaller independent production companies can take on investigations they’d otherwise have to walk away from.
The BBC has the resources to absorb a legal challenge. It still removed Bregman’s sentence. For a smaller organisation without a legal team, without reserves, without the institutional weight to deter a claimant, that calculation resolves faster and more often against publication. The errors and omissions framework doesn’t eliminate that risk. But it changes the balance. It gives smaller producers access to the same legal scrutiny and financial protection that large broadcasters manage in-house, and in doing so, it determines whether difficult journalism gets made at all.
What strikes me working in this field is how rarely that infrastructure gets credit for what it does. It’s treated as a compliance requirement, a line in the budget, a box to tick before distribution. The cases that make the news got through. The ones that didn’t are invisible. The system that keeps the balance in journalism’s favour doesn’t announce itself. But without it, powerful claimants don’t need better lawyers. They just need to be patient.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/27/bbc-donald-trump-corruption-line-removed-from-rutger-bregman-reith-lecture
2. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/27/bbc-donald-trump-corruption-line-removed-from-rutger-bregman-reith-lecture
3. UNESCO: World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development Report (2026)
4. https://rsf.org/en/rsf-world-press-freedom-index-2025-economic-fragility-leading-threat-press-freedom
5. https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/rsf-moves-downgrades-global-press-freedom-index-to-all-time-low/
