Balen Report battle goes to the High Court

[mora]

www.thejc.com/

Balen Report battle goes to the High Court
Lawyer takes on the BBC again to force release of a report into its MidEast coverage
JC REPORTER

Friday 19 January 2007

THE BBC is taking its bid to block the release of a report on its Middle East coverage to the High Court.


Corporation critics, including members of the Jewish community, are suspicious that the 20,000-word Balen Report includes evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming.


Commercial solicitor Steven Sugar fought a lengthy and expensive battle to get access to the report under the 2000 Freedom of Information Act.


At first he was unsuccessful. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, backed the BBC decision not to give him access. (The JC similarly applied for the report to be made public, and was also turned down.)


Mr Sugar, however, appealed, and the Information Tribunal found in his favour. Now the corporation is appealing against that decision in a landmark case which could have wide implications for the future working of the Act and for public broadcasters.


This week, Mr Justice Forbes, sitting at the High Court in London, directed that the appeal, and accompanying applications for judicial review, should be heard over two days beginning on March 27. Mr Sugar, from Putney, South London, was given permission to make his own submissions in person and join lawyers for the tribunal in defending its decision.


He said after Tuesday’s preliminary hearing: “A very large proportion of the Jewish community felt, rightly or wrongly, that the BBC’s reporting of the second Palestinian intifada or uprising that broke out in 2000 was seriously distorted.


“I myself, as a member of the Jewish community, felt that, and was very distressed by it.


“I am even more distressed that the BBC failed, until it commissioned the Balen Report, to respond substantively to the criticism.


“Now I don’t know whether it is important to see this report or not. Instinct says that if they don’t want to give it to me, it may be important.


“The BBC is a public body and I believe I have a right to know what the report contains.”


The report was compiled by Malcolm Balen, a senior editorial adviser, in 2004.


It examines hundreds of hours of BBC radio and television broadcasts. Issues which arise in the case include whether the Information Tribunal had jurisdiction to hear Mr Sugar’s application and rule as it did.


The BBC is covered by the Freedom of Information Act only “for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature”.


Along with Channel 4, Britain’s other public-service broadcaster, the BBC is allowed to hold back material that deals with the production of its art, entertainment and journalism. On this basis, the corporation has rejected more than 400 Freedom of Information requests.


Mr Sugar’s central argument was that the Balen Report was not held by the BBC for the purposes of journalism “because it’s a report about journalism itself ”, and therefore he was entitled to apply to see it under the Freedom of Information Act.


The Information Tribunal agreed with him.


Even if the BBC’s appeal against the tribunal fails in the High Court, the corporation may seek to claim that it is exempt from having to release the report to the public on other grounds.


Mr Sugar said: “You may see me still fighting this legal battle in 2010.”


A final legal win for Mr Sugar could mean the BBC having to release many other files it has held back.


Attorney Steven Sugar, who filed a court petition demanding the BBC release the report. Sugar: BBC trying to hide something



BBC: Something to Hide?

Does the BBC have something to hide? Does the Balen Report contain the "smoking gun"? For now we cannot know.




Copyright 2003 The Jerusalem Post
The Jerusalem Post

March 28, 2003, Friday

In poisoned English

Ori Golan



BBC NEWS | Richard Miron: Biography

A BBC reporter, who refuses to be named or identified

A BBC reporter, who refuses to be named or identified, recalls reporting from Israel and the territories. "I found a pervasive mindset inside the BBC which dictated that the narrative was that the Israelis were killing the Palestinians.

"There was a failure to give credence to Israeli sources but to believe Palestinian ones. I once filed a story about a certain incident which, I found out, was wrong. I immediately called the BBC to tell them that the story wasn't true, but they decided to run it anyway, a number of times that day. Operation Defensive Shield was a huge failure on their part.

..."A lot of it," says a BBC reporter who does not want his name used, "is about bringing down the Jews a peg or two. Until I started working as a correspondent I did not believe for a minute that anti-Israel attitudes in the media were in any way anti-Semitic. Unfortunately, working closely with foreign journalists in the last few years has made me change my mind in some cases.

Richard Miron (biographical details)

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=8060

Richard Miron
Richard Miron has worked as a correspondent for the BBC's national and international news networks – World Service TV, News 24, BBC 1, World Service Radio and Radio 4 – as well as on documentaries and on leading current affairs programmes, including: Today, The World at One, PM, and The World This Weekend.

For a number of years, Miron was based in the Middle East, and has worked in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Balkans. In 1997, he received an Achievement in Radio Award in the United States for his coverage of a suicide bombing in Jerusalem. Miron has also broadcast on other networks including American Public Radio, South African Broadcasting, and RTE Irish Radio.

His output on Israel/Palestine can be perceived as Israel-centred.

IN Autumn 2003, he spoke at a Zionist conference in Brighton (UK), his talking being described by an enthusiastic attendee as follows:

The speaker was Richard Miron, a well known BBC radio and TV correspondent who had served several years reporting from Israel. Richard is Jewish and certainly not anti Israel. He explained why he thought the BBC came across as negative to Israel and what it can do and what we can do to make things better. There was a robust question and answer session and it was a brilliant session.

[mora]

BBC news 'favours Israel' at expense of Palestinian view

THE BBC’S coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict implicitly favours the Israeli side, a study for the BBC Governors has concluded.

Deaths of Israelis received greater coverage than Palestinian fatalities, while Israelis received more airtime on news and current affairs programmes. The references to “identifiable shortcomings” surprised BBC News executives, who are more used to accusations that their coverage is routinely anti-Israel.

commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/inayat_bunglawala/2006/07/mel_p_and_the_beirut_broadcast.html


The BBC, Mel P and me
Melanie Phillips has denounced the 'Beirut Broadcasting Corporation'. But have news editors traditionally been biased towards Israel?


Pity the BBC. Our national broadcaster regularly faces stern criticism for its news coverage of the Middle East from pro-Israeli and (in a much more disorganised manner) pro-Palestinian groups, but with the latest crisis in Lebanon, the corporation finds itself under unusually heavy fire.
Some Jewish commentators, including Melanie Phillips ("The BBC in particular has turned into the Beirut Broadcasting Corporation ...The BBC has now become one of the most potent weapons of the enemies of civilisation") and Stephen Pollard ("The BBC's Blatant Bias") evidently believe that the BBC is reporting the news from the Middle East unfairly.

Others, however, including the BBC's former Middle East correspondent for 10 years Tim Llewellyn, have long argued that, on the contrary, the BBC's news editors - along with those of other British broadcasters - have actually been cowed by pressure from partisan supporters of Israel. He wrote, in the Observer of June 20 2004:


A former news agency bureau chief, based in Jerusalem, sums it up: "[British TV] cover the day-to-day action but not the human inequities, the essential imbalances of the occupation, the humiliations of the Palestinians." He also quotes a BBC journalist, who tells him TV centre does not want 'explainers ... it's all bang-bang stuff'... The reasons for this tentative, unbalanced attitude to the central Middle East story are powerful. BBC news management is by turns schmoozed and pestered by the Israeli embassy. The pressure by this hyperactive, skilful mission and by Israel's many influential and well-organised friends is unremitting and productive, especially now that accusations of anti-semitism can be so wildly deployed.


But how much of this criticism is actually justified and how does the BBC compare with other news outlets in the UK?

In their 2004 book Bad News from Israel, Professor Greg Philo and Dr Mike Berry of the Glasgow University Media Group published the findings of their independent study into the broadcast coverage of the Middle East on the main UK terrestrial channels.

According to the authors, television news is the main source of information on the Israel-Palestine conflict for about 80% of the population. Their research found that on British television, particularly on BBC1, there was a preponderance of official "Israeli perspectives". Israelis were interviewed or reported more than twice as much as Palestinians. Many statements were also broadcast from US politicians who tended strongly to support Israel.

The most important of the omissions the authors found was the almost total lack of context and history in the reporting. Scant effort was made to provide information about the motives or rationale behind the actions of either side. The research revealed that television viewers were largely unaware of the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict and were therefore confused by what they were told and what they saw in nightly reports. There were substantial gaps in knowledge, with few showing any awareness of the 1967 occupation let alone the 1948 founding of the Israeli state on Palestinian lands. Some viewers told the researchers they saw the conflict as a border dispute between two countries rather than the consequence of a modern regional superpower having dispossessed much of an indigenous population and continued to annex more Palestinian territory ever since.

According to Philo and Berry, only Channel 4 News made a consistently serious attempt to deliver the news from the Middle East in a balanced manner.

Last year, almost 12 months after the publication of Bad News from Israel, the BBC governors commissioned a distinguished independent panel to report on whether its Israel-Palestine coverage was fair or not.


The panel's final report, published in April 2006, stated that it did not find any intentional bias at the BBC. However, it did issue a number of recommendations, the first of which - perhaps in a nod to Philo, Berry and Llewellyn, stated:


We want the BBC to provide more consistently a full and fair account, and to fill in the gaps, most obviously in respect of context and history. We say, too, that TV should look for the important stories and not be dazzled by striking, and available, pictures.

The detailed survey found disparities (in favour of Israelis) in the amount of talk time given to Israelis and Palestinians, and that “Israeli fatalities generally receive greater coverage than Palestinian fatalities”.

The methodology of the survey may be a complicating factor - time of coverage of victims as a measure of objectivity or balance. Dr. Irene Lancaster of the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester also questioned the study's assumption that the fact that the BBC broadcast more interviews with Jews and Israelis than with Palestinians demonstrated a pro-Israel leaning. The BBC regularly reports the opinions of anti-Israeli Jews, Dr Lancaster said, which under the report's methodology would count as a pro-Israel broadcast.

The Times reports that the study exmined the airtime that Israeli and Plestinian casulties received, and drew conclusions that more airtime had been given to Israeli casualties which were fewer as aginst Palestinian Casulties which were 4 times as great in that period. There was no indication that there was any atempt to sperate Palestinian casulties resulting from the infighting between Hamas and Fatah (which has been going on in that period), nor what the ratio of civilian casulties to military were. But worse than that I find it very dificult to see how this difference can be used to adduce a Pro Israeli bias. The Israeli casulties are primarily from mass casulty attacks, which the Palestinian Terroists who mount them fully intend to attract maxium media coverage.


The conclusion that there is insufficient coverage of the difficulties of Palestinian life under occupation and thus coverage of the conflict is missing crucial context swallows the primary Palestinian position at the outset, essentially the onerousness of the occupation causes the violence, rather than the violence leading to an onerous occupation. This pretty much builds in pro palestian bias into any report the commision pproduces before it has even started, and is very close to beinga justification for terrorism. Israelis would argue (as would I, truth be known), that the difficulties of Palestinian life in the occupied territories are largely self induced, in that the restrictions and poverty and unemployment are very much the result of the Palestinian inability to control the violence directed against Israel. Now it is cetianly a legitimate discussion as to how much it is a viscious cycle and how much each side is to blame, but this Panel appears to have taken a particular view on thsi question at the oustset. As a result any deemed insufficiency of reportage on Palestinian difficulties in the West Bank or Gaza is ipso facto sign of anti Palestian bias.

A story by the broadcaster's Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen, on the Palestinian Authority's funding crisis stated, "Without foreign donations the PA cannot do the most basic things, like pay its staff, let alone address the desperate economic and social problems faced in the territories, many of which have been caused by nearly 40 years of military occupation by Israel." The BBC mentioned no other cause for the PA's economic and social problems other than military occupation by Israel.

August 21, 2006
The Jerusalem Post

THE BEEB IN ARABIA

Simon Waldman

The foray into the Arab world is not the only reason for concern. Following years of criticism of the BBC over the quality, context and balance of its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in October last year the organization appointed an independent panel, chaired by Sir Quentin Thomas, president of the British Board of Film Classification, to assess whether its news and current affairs coverage of the conflict was impartial. The outcome does not bode well for Israel.

Released in April 2006, the panel's report made three central recommendations: First, there should be a stronger editorial "guiding hand;" second, terrorists should be called "terrorists" and not other terms such as "militants;" third, greater context should be provided and a more proactive approach should be taken in explaining the conflict and its complexities. In late June, BBC management rejected the first two suggestions, but incorporated the third by pledging to appoint a West Bank correspondent in addition to its Jerusalem-based correspondents. The BBC is also planning to provide an on-demand online service to provide background and context to the conflict.


On the face of it, this sounds like a move in the right direction. But what did the panel mean by "context" and taking a more "proactive" approach? A theme that recurs throughout the report is that there is an "asymmetry" between Israel and the Palestinians. It argues that the BBC has failed to reflect "that one side is in control and the other lives under occupation" and that it is "important that coverage should succeed in this, if nothing else." And it asserts that "Palestinian suffering arises from the situation of displacement and occupation, which does not usually lend itself to the newsworthy event." The panel argued that unlike the Palestinian Authority, Israel is a functioning state with democratic institutions and an advanced economy with sophisticated defense capability, creating a disparity between the two sides. One side is "wholly under the occupation of the other" and "endures the indignities of dependence." This asymmetry between the two parties poses a challenge to the BBC's reporting because balance, impartiality and fairness only work naturally when the parties are on an equal footing, the panel added. It concluded that a formulaic application of balance to the conflict would produce misleading coverage.

This theory is dangerous partly because it is not necessarily true. One needs only to imagine how such an assumption could be sustained when reporting conflicts such as the Russian-Chechen dispute, the civil war in Sri Lanka, paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, the actions of Basque separatists in Spain, or even student protests against the French government.

Moreover, the panel appears oblivious to the fact that Israel is surrounded by many hostile states sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, some of whom do not recognize Israel, fund and support terrorism, seek to acquire nuclear weapons and threaten to wipe Israel off the map. Indeed, if there is an asymmetry between the sides, it is one that does not favor the Jewish state.
The findings of the independent panel's report are misguided, and, if they are applied, the BBC's coverage of the conflict would be even more hostile to Israel than some believe it already is. All this leads to speculation over whether BBC bosses are in fact concerned with the quality and balance of the BBC's Middle East reporting, or whether they already have an eye toward attracting potential audiences and advertising revenue in the Arab market. For example, is it possible that BBC World was excluded from the panel's remit because a negative report would have threatened potential advertising revenue? And is this why BBC management chose to ignore recommendations to use the word "terrorist" to describe terrorist acts? Selectively incorporating the panel's conclusions and omitting BBC World from that investigation implies that overseas, where the BBC accepts advertising, balanced and unbiased reporting is not a priority. What is more important is attracting Arab audiences and raising revenues from advertising.

New Statesman

The west has its reasons for validating Israel's violence; human rights are not an issue

John Pilger

Tim Llewellyn, a former BBC Middle East Correspondent, wrote a reflective piece in the Observer recently in which he left the reader in no doubt that the issue was not one of 'two truths, one tragedy', but of straightforward justice for the Palestinians. He described the 'peace agreement' that was concluded in secret at Oslo as 'a misleading and humiliating farce for the Palestinians'. But honourable exceptions aside, has the sum of the BBC's coverage of the Middle East ever told that truth? The aim, at times almost a fetish, has been to 'balance' oppressor and oppressed, illegal occupier and the occupied, those with Cobra gunships and those with stones. 'According to the security forces,' a BBC reporter told us last week (he meant the Israeli occupiers), 'the time for restraint was over . . .' Restraint? All but a few of those killed have been unarmed Palestinians, many of them teenagers and children. The same reporter said he had been 'assured' by the Israelis that their helicopter gunship attacks on Ramallah were 'pinpoint . . . extremely accurate'.

[Teddy Bear]

Great Stuff Mora - you certainly do your homework.

[Teddy Bear]

This story highlights the real 'transparency' of the BBC - just like a sheet of lead.

BBC pays £200,000 to 'cover up report on anti-Israel bias'
by PAUL REVOIR

Last updated at 21:24pm on 22nd March 2007

The BBC has been accused of "shameful hypocrisy" over its decision to spend £200,000 blocking a freedom of information request about its reporting in the Middle East.

The corporation, which has itself made extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism, is refusing to release papers about an internal inquiry into whether its reporting has been biased towards Palestine.

BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting thousands of pounds of licence fee payers money trying to cover-up the findings of the so called Balen Report into its journalism in the region, despite the fact that the corporation is funded by the British public.

The corporation is fighting a landmark High Court action, which starts next week, in a bid to prevent the public finding out what is in the review, which is believed to be critical of the BBC's coverage in the region.

BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that is coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed by a pro-Palestianian bias.

The corporation famously came under fire after middle-east correspondent Barbara Plett revealed that she had cried at the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004.

The BBC's decision to carry on pursuing the case, despite the fact than the Information Tribunal said it should make the report public, has sparked fury as it flies in the face of claims by BBC chiefs that it is trying to make the corporation more open and transparent.

Politicians have branded the BBC's decision to carry on spending money, hiring the one of the country's top public law barrister in the process, as "absolutely indefensible".

They claim its publication is clearly in the public interest.

The BBC's determination to bury the report has led to speculation that the report was damning in its assessment of the BBC's coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict that the BBC wants to keep it under wraps at all costs.

Others believe that the BBC is using the case to test the law about how much protection it has got from making its editorial activities public and also because it fears that if it loses the case it will create a precedent.

The BBC's action over the case have provoked inevitable charges of hypocrisy as the BBC itself makes frequent used of freedom of information requests to get stories.

The BBC's own website boasts of 69 stories that it says it has broken with the help of the Freedom of Information Act.

If the BBC loses the High Court case next week it could appeal again and again until the case reaches the European Court in Strasbourg.

This would soak further thousands from BBC coffers, which should be spent on making TV programmes.

Conservative MP David Davies said: "An organisation which is funded partly to scrutinise governments and other institutions in Britain appears to be using tax-payers money to prevent its customers from finding out how it is operating. That is absolutely indefensible."

He added: "I think the BBC are guilty of shameful hypocrisy. What could possibly be in this report that could possibly be worth £200,000 to bury. What is it they feel is so awful in this report."

A source close to the case said they believed that the BBC had spend in the region of £200,000 on the case so far, while another legal expert claimed the cost could be as much as £300,000.

The document was put together by BBC editorial advisor Malcolm Balen in 2004 but never released.

The High Court action next week is the latest episode in what has become a lengthy legal battle which has been pursued by London solicitor Steven Sugar, who made the initial FOI request.

Initially Information Commissioner Richard Thomas agreed with the BBC's decision not to release details of the report.

But Sugar appealed the Information Tribunal and they backed his claims in September. This then saw the BBC appeal to the High Court.

The BBC claims public broadcasters do not have to disclose material that is held for the purposes of "journalism, art or literature".

But the BBC is now facing accusations it is using this rule as a smoke-screen.

It claims the measures are there to protect the integrity of its reporting and protects its journalists from interference from the public.

The BBC Believes that this includes the Balen Report.

The BBC also claims that if the court finds in Sugar's favour it could lead to a sudden increase in FOI requests which would require more staff and a further burden on the licence fee.

While the BBC did not reveal the findings of the Balen Report, which was compiled in 2004, the corporation did last year make public the findings of an independent panel report into the BBC's impartiality on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That report found said that there was "no deliberate or systematic bias" in the BBC's reporting, but said its approach had at times been "inconsistent" and was "not always providing a complete picture" which had been "misleading".

But some claimed that the independent panel report only took a snapshot of the BBC's activities and should have looked more deeply at the reporting of the most troubled moments of the conflict.

Steven Sugar, who said he was prepared to take the case all the way to European court, said: "What I would like to see is the disclosure of an important document which will give us an insight into what the BBC itself thinks of its own performance.

"I would like to see the BBC facing up to its professed interest in transparency and openness."

[Teddy Bear]

Well it should have been a no-brainer! The BBC is paid for by the people, and therefore should be transparent to the people. "Not so", said a high court judge today, in another 'brilliant' judicial decision, like the one this week giving community service to a mother who goaded her toddlers to physically beat and punch each other while she filmed it.

The Balen report is not subject to the 'Freedom of Information' act, and the BBC can continue to pretend that they have a good motive for concealing it. One more step in their Big Brother Coverage

BBC wins Balen report battle


Chris Tryhorn and agencies
Friday April 27, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk


The BBC has won a high court battle to prevent the publication of an internal report into allegations of bias in its news coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Today a judge overturned an earlier ruling under the Freedom of Information Act that it should publish the report, written by its Middle East news coverage "tsar", Malcolm Balen.

Mr Justice Davis, sitting at the high court in London, said today that the decision taken by the Information Tribunal in August last year was flawed.

"I conclude that the BBC's submissions are well founded," the judge said. "The tribunal had no jurisdiction to entertain any appeal."

London solicitor Steven Sugar, who brought the case to court, described today's ruling as "a technical win by the BBC ... weighting the Freedom of Information Act in its favour".

"Perhaps the BBC Trust under its new chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, will take a different view to the BBC management and conclude that it is in the public interest for Mr Balen's report to be published," he added.

The BBC welcomed today's ruling, arguing that because the Balen report was conducted for purposes of journalism, it fell outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.

"We believe that programme makers must have the space to be able to freely discuss and reflect on editorial issues in support of independent journalism," the corporation said in a statement.

"The BBC's action in this case had nothing to do with the fact that the Balen report was about the Middle East - the same approach would have been taken whatever area of news output was covered.

"The BBC engages with the public in debating issues of editorial impartiality in other ways, including through subject-based independent impartiality reviews as part of the BBC Trust's role in ensuring the BBC's editorial standards and monitoring its output."

Today's ruling sets a new precedent in assessing how far the Freedom of Information Act obliges the BBC to make its internal proceses public.

Earlier this year, the BBC lost a battle with the Guardian and campaigner Heather Brooke to keep private the minutes of the meeting at which the decision to sack Greg Dyke was taken in January 2004.

The BBC has faced persistent complaints from both sides that its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is biased.

Mr Balen's 2004 report led to greater resources being allocated to the Middle East and the appointment of a specific editor for the region, veteran foreign correspondent Jeremy Bowen.

Last year, an independent review commissioned by the corporation's board of governors found that BBC coverage of the conflict was "incomplete" and "misleading", but not biased one way or the other.

Chaired by the British Board of Film Classification president, Sir Quentin Thomas, the governors' review said BBC output failed to consistently "constitute a full and fair account of the conflict but rather, in important respects, presents an incomplete and, in that sense, misleading picture".

In one particularly controversial incident, the BBC was criticised when correspondent Barbara Plett admitted to crying about the death of Yasser Arafat.

In November 2005, the BBC's governors ruled that her Radio 4 report had breached impartiality guidelines, reversing an earlier decision by management.

Hundreds of listeners had complained to the corporation about the From Our Own Correspondent programme in October 2004.