CHANNEL 4 News has been accused of “inventing” a quote after it apologised for erroneously producing a social media clip which reported Boris Johnson saying he was in favour of having "people of colour" come to the UK instead of "people of talent".
In a tweet from its social media account, the broadcaster admitted the Prime Minister had said "people of talent", adding: "We misheard and we apologise."
But a senior Tory source accused Channel 4 of "inventing the most damaging things possible to further their campaign against Brexit".
The video came from a speech Mr Johnson made in front of workers in Derbyshire on Thursday afternoon as he discussed immigration after Brexit.
Channel 4's video contained the subtitles: "I'm in favour of having people of colour come to this country. But I think we should have it democratically controlled."
As a row erupted over whether Mr Johnson said "colour" or "talent", Channel 4 News removed the video from its social media page.
It then tweeted: "Boris Johnson says 'people of talent' not 'people of colour'. Our earlier tweet was a mistake. We misheard and we apologise."
The Conservatives had vehemently denied the PM had said "people of colour".
A senior Tory source said: "This shows why it has been impossible to co-operate with Channel 4 News, they are campaigners in this election; inventing the most damaging things possible to further their campaign against Brexit.
"This sort of thing is why so many media organisations have collapsing audiences. We sadly do not expect the senior management at Channel 4 to take this terrible mistake seriously and we expect more of the same."
James Cleverly, the Tory Chairman, tweeted: "Boris has used the phrase 'people of talent' many times during this election campaign in relation to our points based immigration policy."
Earlier this week, Channel 4 was cleared of bias by Ofcom, the media regulator, after replacing Mr Johnson with a melting block of ice during last week’s leadership debate on the climate crisis.
Conservative HQ had complained to Ofcom that the broadcast had breached strict broadcasting impartiality rules but the regulator disagreed and the ice sculpture was a “relatively low-key” way of empty-chairing the politicians.
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