What Happened to Balen?

[Teddy Bear]

Back in November 2003, The Telegraph ran this article:

BBC appoints man to monitor 'pro-Arab bias'
By Tom Leonard, Media Editor
(Filed: 11/11/2003)

The BBC has appointed a "Middle East policeman" to oversee its coverage of the region amid mounting allegations of anti-Israeli bias.

Malcolm Balen, a former editor of the Nine O'Clock News, has been recruited in an attempt to improve the corporation's reporting of the Middle East and its relationship with the main political players.

Mr Balen, who left the BBC three years ago, will work full-time with the official title of "senior editorial adviser".

It is the first time the corporation has made such an appointment. Insiders say it is a signal that senior executives feel that the Middle East is an area over which the BBC needs to take particular care.

Relations between the corporation and the Israeli government hit a low point this summer when the latter "withdrew co-operation" in protest at a BBC documentary about the country's weapons of mass destruction.

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, later barred the BBC from his meeting with the British press during a visit to London.

The BBC has also been the target of Downing Street accusations that it toed a pro-Baghdad line over the Iraq war and that it influenced the Today programme's handling of the dossier story that is the subject of the Hutton Inquiry.

A BBC spokesman said: "Malcolm is a hugely experienced senior programme editor whose appointment will help us on our relations with all parties in the region."

The decision to appoint Mr Balen was taken jointly by Richard Sambrook, the director of BBC News, and Mark Byford, the head of the World Service. The latter's Arabic Service has been singled out by some critics as the most anti-Israeli source of the corporation's Middle East output.

The BBC denied that the appointment amounted to an admission that it had "got its coverage wrong" but conceded the corporation was sensitive to criticism. He said it was "no longer the case" that the Israelis were refusing to co-operate with BBC journalists.

An accusation frequently levelled against the corporation is that it reports the Arab-Israeli conflict too much from a Palestinian point of view.

Its reluctance to describe suicide bombers as "terrorists" has proved particularly controversial, recently prompting the Simon Wiesenthal Centre to pull out of a BBC series about Nazi genocide.

The corporation faces increasing scrutiny of all areas of its activities during the run-up to the renewal of its royal charter in 2006.

So what happened to him?
Honest Reporting has just sent out the following report:

BBC LOSES BALEN CASE

Back in November 2003, Malcolm Balen was appointed by the BBC as a "senior editorial advisor" to improve Mideast coverage. According to Ha'aretz, Balen was to issue an internal report to BBC executives. Balen, however, disappeared from view and his report was buried in the vaults of White City despite numerous requests from outside organisations to view its contents.

One London solicitor persevered and a tribunal has now ruled that the BBC was wrong to deny access to the Balen Report, opening the way for many other previous requests to be resubmitted. There are many people who would be very interested to see Balen's conclusions regarding the BBC's treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. HonestReporting UK will now submit its own request to the BBC for access to the Balen Report.

To ensure that our request is on behalf of as many people as possible, please refer friends and family to HonestReporting UK and encourage them to subscribe.

HonestReporting UK

[Teddy Bear]

HonestReporting UK previously reported that the BBC's failure to prevent the release of the Balen Report into the Corporation's Mideast coverage. We therefore submitted our own request under the Freedom of Information Act for access to the report in the belief that it would reluctantly be granted. Some weeks later we were disappointed to receive this response:

The review, written in 2004 by Malcolm Balen a senior BBC journalist, is currently used by senior editors in BBC News to inform coverage of the Middle East. In our view, the Act does not apply to this document because the BBC holds this document and other Output Reviews for the purposes of "journalism, art or literature." Schedule 1 of the Act provides that the legislation only applies to information held for other purposes.

So it appeared that the BBC was not prepared to release the report despite the ruling of a tribunal. Only days later, the Sunday Telegraph revealed just how badly the Corporation wants to prevent access to the Balen Report:

The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of licence payers' money trying to block the release of a report which is believed to be highly critical of its Middle East coverage.

The corporation is mounting a landmark High Court action to prevent the release of The Balen Report under the Freedom of Information Act, despite the fact that BBC reporters often use the Act to pursue their journalism.

The action will increase suspicions that the report, which is believed to run to 20,000 words, includes evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming.

Does the BBC have something to hide? Does the Balen Report contain the "smoking gun"? For now we cannot know. We can only hope that the High Court will rule against the BBC and force it to release the report once and for all. HonestReporting UK will continue to keep subscribers updated on developments.