Post by mora on Dec 20, 2005 2:15:15 GMT
news.independent.co.uk/media/article332622.ece
Greg Dyke On Broadcasting
The BBC should never give in to pressure - or even be seen to
Published: 12 December 2005
I have no doubt that the decision by the BBC to pull their Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents around the world. However it was pretty bad timing to announce it within days of Director General Mark Thompson's visit to Israel where he had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Sharon has never hidden his intense dislike of Guerin or the BBC's reporting of the Middle East and Guerin was recently accused of being "anti-semitic" and of "identifying with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups" by a former Israeli minister.
At the very least the BBC should have foreseen the suspicions that would arise from the two events - Thompson's visit and Guerin's departure - and separated them by several months. As it is, the timing of the announcement to move Guerin inevitably raises the question of how much pressure the Israeli Government put on the BBC, which in turn allows some to question the BBC's impartiality.
In my time at the BBC the two biggest areas of complaint about our news coverage - ignoring the never ending whinges from the Iain Duncan Smith-led Tory Party that they were not being taken seriously enough - were about our coverage of Europe and our coverage of Israel. In both cases the complaints came from groups who believed passionately in their causes and had convinced themselves that the BBC was, in their respective areas, institutionally pro-European and institutionally anti-Israeli. I would argue passionately that neither was true.
The people who complained about the BBC's coverage of Israel were almost entirely Jewish and there was some evidence that their campaign against the BBC was being "encouraged" by the Israeli Embassy in London. There was no doubt that Prime Minister Sharon put enormous pressure on his ambassador in Britain to try to force the BBC to change its coverage to make it more pro-Israeli.
We investigated many of the complaints and most of the time found our reporting had been totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby didn't accept that but then they had a different agenda. The problem with reporting the Middle East, as with reporting so many conflicts, is that both sides are adamant they are right. As I explained to a meeting at a north London synagogue recently, the BBC's role was to try to report all sides in the Middle East conflict "fairly", which was not what they or the Israeli Government wanted to hear.
But the point is that the passionate advocates of a particular view on any issue are not "impartial" which is why their allegations against journalists who are doing their best to be fair always have to be dealt with seriously but also with a degree of scepticism.
The argument I used with both the Euro-sceptics and the pro-Israel lobby was the same as the one I used with Tony Blair during the run up to the Iraq War. Given their passionately held views how could they possibly be the judge of impartiality? They were in no way objective.
One prominent Jew who did not believe the BBC was biased against Israel was the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I invited him to speak to a management group at the BBC one morning and he would have none of the argument that the BBC was doing anything other than trying to report a difficult situation fairly. But he wasn't typical amongst the Jewish community in Britain.
I once went to receive an award for the BBC's coverage of the first ever Holocaust Day from a prominent Jewish organisation and was told, in no uncertain terms, that the award was for our coverage of that event only. I shrugged, accepted the award and thought to myself "Well they would say that wouldn't they?"
No-one summed up the whole position better than the BBC's World Affairs editor John Simpson when he wrote that in recent times the BBC has reported a series of conflicts as fairly as it could. On every occasion the Government of the day had tried to bully the BBC into supporting a particular line and on each occasion the BBC had resisted. "Governments have as much right as anyone to put pressure on the BBC; it's only a problem if the BBC caves in." The same applies to the Israeli Government.
BBC chief holds peace talks in Jerusalem with Ariel Sharon
The Independent UK
Date: 11-28-05
Published: 29 November 2005
The BBC is often accused of an anti-Israeli bias in its coverage of the Middle East, and recently censured reporter Barbara Plett for saying she "started to cry" when Yasser Arafat left Palestine shortly before his death.
Fascinating, then, to learn that its director general, Mark Thompson, has recently returned from Jerusalem, where he held a face-to-face meeting with the hardine Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Although the diplomatic visit was not publicised on these shores, it has been seized upon in Israel as evidence that Thompson, who took office in 2004, intends to build bridges with the country's political class.
Sources at the Beeb also suspect that it heralds a "softening" to the corporation's unofficial editorial line on the Middle East.
"This was the first visit of its kind by any serving director general, so it's clearly a significant development," I'm told.
"Not many people know this, but Mark is actually a deeply religious man. He's a Catholic, but his wife is Jewish, and he has a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors."
Understandably, an official BBC spokesman was anxious to downplay talk of an exclusively pro-Israeli charm offensive.
Apopros this month's previously undocumented trip, he stressed that Thompson had also held talks with the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
BBC's coverage of the Middle East
Sir: Greg Dyke's article (Media, 12 December) does not reflect the Chief Rabbi's views on the BBC's coverage of the Middle East.
At the meeting with a BBC management group to which Mr Dyke refers, the Chief Rabbi argued that there was in his view a failure to provide viewers with an Israeli perspective on events in the Middle East. He urged the Director General to commission a documentary that would do this by contextualising these events. He followed up this request by letter. He repeated his concerns when he addressed a subsequent gathering of BBC producers, at their request, several months later.
The Chief Rabbi shares the concerns held by the Jewish community about the BBC's Middle East coverage, and is constantly reminded of these on his frequent visits to communities both in the UK and abroad.
ZAKI COOPER
HEAD OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS OFFICE OF THE CHIEF RABBI LONDON N12
Britain's chief rabbi comes under fire for praising BBC,
By Sharon Sadeh, Haaretz (Israel), February 2, 2004
"A senior British rabbi yesterday harshly criticized Britain's chief rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks, who, on Saturday praised the BBC for its "integrity, honesty, fairness [and] balance." Sacks devoted his latest "Thought for the Day" program to expressing his admiration for the work of ousted BBC director-general Greg Dyke. Dyke was forced to resign last weekend in the wake of the findings of a royal commission of inquiry that determined, among other things, that the corporation had broadcast unfounded reports against the British government, criticizing its intentions to go to war in Iraq. In his program, Sacks praised the BBC for viewing broadcasting "not as a business, but as a service," adding that "news doesn't have to be sexy or sensational. All is needs to do is to tell it the way it is - impartially, objectively, without taking sides." Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, the rabbi of the Jewish community of Stanmore, the largest of the United Synagogue communities (an organization headed by Sacks), however, expressed rage and disgust with the chief rabbi's statements. "The chief rabbi's statement runs counter to the almost universal belief within Anglo-Jewry that the BBC has shown almost unremitting bias in its reporting of Israel's case," a response from Cohen said. "Such bias may well have contributed significantly to the anti-Israel sentiment that is growing apace around the world, and which has, in turn, fueled the naked anti-Semitism that parades as mere opposition to the policies of the government of Israel." According to Cohen, "Not only was the chief rabbi's fulsome praise of the BBC's `integrity, honesty, fairness, balance ... impartiality, objectivity' misplaced, to say the least, but to suggest that, somehow, it was fulfilling a sacred purpose, a `service' is quite preposterous." Israel boycotted the BBC for five months in response to reports with anti-Israel overtones, some of which included false particulars about the activities of the Israel Defense Forces in the territories. Others in Britain's Jewish community also expressed anger and wonderment at Sacks's remarks, noting that the chief rabbi's statements were a mortal blow to efforts to balance the BBC's "hostile and one-sided" coverage policy. A few weeks ago, one of the leaders of Britain's Jewish community, Stanley Kalms, called for Sacks to be removed from his post, charging him of being unworthy of the position of chief rabbi."
Greg Dyke On Broadcasting
The BBC should never give in to pressure - or even be seen to
Published: 12 December 2005
I have no doubt that the decision by the BBC to pull their Middle East correspondent Orla Guerin out of the region and send her to South Africa was part of the normal rotation of BBC news correspondents around the world. However it was pretty bad timing to announce it within days of Director General Mark Thompson's visit to Israel where he had a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Sharon has never hidden his intense dislike of Guerin or the BBC's reporting of the Middle East and Guerin was recently accused of being "anti-semitic" and of "identifying with the goals and methods of the Palestinian terror groups" by a former Israeli minister.
At the very least the BBC should have foreseen the suspicions that would arise from the two events - Thompson's visit and Guerin's departure - and separated them by several months. As it is, the timing of the announcement to move Guerin inevitably raises the question of how much pressure the Israeli Government put on the BBC, which in turn allows some to question the BBC's impartiality.
In my time at the BBC the two biggest areas of complaint about our news coverage - ignoring the never ending whinges from the Iain Duncan Smith-led Tory Party that they were not being taken seriously enough - were about our coverage of Europe and our coverage of Israel. In both cases the complaints came from groups who believed passionately in their causes and had convinced themselves that the BBC was, in their respective areas, institutionally pro-European and institutionally anti-Israeli. I would argue passionately that neither was true.
The people who complained about the BBC's coverage of Israel were almost entirely Jewish and there was some evidence that their campaign against the BBC was being "encouraged" by the Israeli Embassy in London. There was no doubt that Prime Minister Sharon put enormous pressure on his ambassador in Britain to try to force the BBC to change its coverage to make it more pro-Israeli.
We investigated many of the complaints and most of the time found our reporting had been totally fair. Of course the pro-Israeli lobby didn't accept that but then they had a different agenda. The problem with reporting the Middle East, as with reporting so many conflicts, is that both sides are adamant they are right. As I explained to a meeting at a north London synagogue recently, the BBC's role was to try to report all sides in the Middle East conflict "fairly", which was not what they or the Israeli Government wanted to hear.
But the point is that the passionate advocates of a particular view on any issue are not "impartial" which is why their allegations against journalists who are doing their best to be fair always have to be dealt with seriously but also with a degree of scepticism.
The argument I used with both the Euro-sceptics and the pro-Israel lobby was the same as the one I used with Tony Blair during the run up to the Iraq War. Given their passionately held views how could they possibly be the judge of impartiality? They were in no way objective.
One prominent Jew who did not believe the BBC was biased against Israel was the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. I invited him to speak to a management group at the BBC one morning and he would have none of the argument that the BBC was doing anything other than trying to report a difficult situation fairly. But he wasn't typical amongst the Jewish community in Britain.
I once went to receive an award for the BBC's coverage of the first ever Holocaust Day from a prominent Jewish organisation and was told, in no uncertain terms, that the award was for our coverage of that event only. I shrugged, accepted the award and thought to myself "Well they would say that wouldn't they?"
No-one summed up the whole position better than the BBC's World Affairs editor John Simpson when he wrote that in recent times the BBC has reported a series of conflicts as fairly as it could. On every occasion the Government of the day had tried to bully the BBC into supporting a particular line and on each occasion the BBC had resisted. "Governments have as much right as anyone to put pressure on the BBC; it's only a problem if the BBC caves in." The same applies to the Israeli Government.
BBC chief holds peace talks in Jerusalem with Ariel Sharon
The Independent UK
Date: 11-28-05
Published: 29 November 2005
The BBC is often accused of an anti-Israeli bias in its coverage of the Middle East, and recently censured reporter Barbara Plett for saying she "started to cry" when Yasser Arafat left Palestine shortly before his death.
Fascinating, then, to learn that its director general, Mark Thompson, has recently returned from Jerusalem, where he held a face-to-face meeting with the hardine Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Although the diplomatic visit was not publicised on these shores, it has been seized upon in Israel as evidence that Thompson, who took office in 2004, intends to build bridges with the country's political class.
Sources at the Beeb also suspect that it heralds a "softening" to the corporation's unofficial editorial line on the Middle East.
"This was the first visit of its kind by any serving director general, so it's clearly a significant development," I'm told.
"Not many people know this, but Mark is actually a deeply religious man. He's a Catholic, but his wife is Jewish, and he has a far greater regard for the Israeli cause than some of his predecessors."
Understandably, an official BBC spokesman was anxious to downplay talk of an exclusively pro-Israeli charm offensive.
Apopros this month's previously undocumented trip, he stressed that Thompson had also held talks with the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas.
BBC's coverage of the Middle East
Sir: Greg Dyke's article (Media, 12 December) does not reflect the Chief Rabbi's views on the BBC's coverage of the Middle East.
At the meeting with a BBC management group to which Mr Dyke refers, the Chief Rabbi argued that there was in his view a failure to provide viewers with an Israeli perspective on events in the Middle East. He urged the Director General to commission a documentary that would do this by contextualising these events. He followed up this request by letter. He repeated his concerns when he addressed a subsequent gathering of BBC producers, at their request, several months later.
The Chief Rabbi shares the concerns held by the Jewish community about the BBC's Middle East coverage, and is constantly reminded of these on his frequent visits to communities both in the UK and abroad.
ZAKI COOPER
HEAD OF EXTERNAL RELATIONS OFFICE OF THE CHIEF RABBI LONDON N12
Britain's chief rabbi comes under fire for praising BBC,
By Sharon Sadeh, Haaretz (Israel), February 2, 2004
"A senior British rabbi yesterday harshly criticized Britain's chief rabbi, Dr. Jonathan Sacks, who, on Saturday praised the BBC for its "integrity, honesty, fairness [and] balance." Sacks devoted his latest "Thought for the Day" program to expressing his admiration for the work of ousted BBC director-general Greg Dyke. Dyke was forced to resign last weekend in the wake of the findings of a royal commission of inquiry that determined, among other things, that the corporation had broadcast unfounded reports against the British government, criticizing its intentions to go to war in Iraq. In his program, Sacks praised the BBC for viewing broadcasting "not as a business, but as a service," adding that "news doesn't have to be sexy or sensational. All is needs to do is to tell it the way it is - impartially, objectively, without taking sides." Rabbi Dr. Jeffrey Cohen, the rabbi of the Jewish community of Stanmore, the largest of the United Synagogue communities (an organization headed by Sacks), however, expressed rage and disgust with the chief rabbi's statements. "The chief rabbi's statement runs counter to the almost universal belief within Anglo-Jewry that the BBC has shown almost unremitting bias in its reporting of Israel's case," a response from Cohen said. "Such bias may well have contributed significantly to the anti-Israel sentiment that is growing apace around the world, and which has, in turn, fueled the naked anti-Semitism that parades as mere opposition to the policies of the government of Israel." According to Cohen, "Not only was the chief rabbi's fulsome praise of the BBC's `integrity, honesty, fairness, balance ... impartiality, objectivity' misplaced, to say the least, but to suggest that, somehow, it was fulfilling a sacred purpose, a `service' is quite preposterous." Israel boycotted the BBC for five months in response to reports with anti-Israel overtones, some of which included false particulars about the activities of the Israel Defense Forces in the territories. Others in Britain's Jewish community also expressed anger and wonderment at Sacks's remarks, noting that the chief rabbi's statements were a mortal blow to efforts to balance the BBC's "hostile and one-sided" coverage policy. A few weeks ago, one of the leaders of Britain's Jewish community, Stanley Kalms, called for Sacks to be removed from his post, charging him of being unworthy of the position of chief rabbi."
