BBC Rebukes Bowen for Anti-Israel Comments

[Teddy Bear]

It has taken a number of years for the 'powers that be' at the BBC to finally acknowledge that the skewed anti-Israel reportage of Jeremy Bowen, their Middle East Correspondent, has been damaging true understanding of the conflict there. His misleading reports have also given further impetus to the constant attempts by terrorist groups to continue their attacks with the subsequent increased loss of life and injury, not to mention the decrease in standard of living for all involved, that is entailed.
Why should it have taken so long to arrive at a conclusion that was obvious from the outset?

BBC rebukes its Middle East correspondent Jeremy Bowen for anti-Israel comments
By Paul Revoir

The BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen faced calls to quit tonight after he was criticised for breaching the broadcaster's rules on accuracy and impartiality in two reports about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
An inquiry found that a reference to 'Zionism's innate instinct to push out the frontier' in an article for the BBC's website breached guidelines.
In addition, a suggestion that Israel was 'in defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own' was said to have been 'imprecise'.
A separate radio broadcast by Bowen also led to a complaint and was criticised by the trust.

The initial claims by Bowen were made in a website report entitled 'How 1967 Defined the Middle East'. It sparked two complaints.
Bowen's online article, published last year, put the present-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict in context by explaining the events of the 1967 Six Day War.
But the committee said he should have done more to make clear that there were other views on the matter.
Ruling that the article had breached the rules on impartiality, the committee said: 'Readers might come away from the article thinking that the interpretation offered was the only sensible view of the war.'
'It was not necessary for equal space to be given to the other arguments, but ... the existence of alternative theses should have been more clearly signposted.'
Bowen's radio report, for Radio 4's From Our Own Correspondent, said the US government considered Har Homa, an Israeli settlement near Jerusalem, to be illegal.
This was based on information from an 'authoritative source', the committee said, but there was no evidence the view was official US policy.
BBC bosses have faced repeated claims that reporting of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been skewed towards the Palestinian cause.
One controversial incident involved Middle East correspondent Barbara Plett revealing that she had cried as Yasser Arafat neared death in 2004.

The BBC has also been criticised for spending tens of thousands of pounds in licence fee cash in a court battle to block publication of an internal report into its alleged bias in covering the region.
Then earlier this year it incensed pro-Palestinian supporters after it refused to show a Gaza charity appeal for fear of risking its impartiality.

Jonathan Turner, who made one of the complaints, said he was pleased with the committee's findings.
But he said Bowen should leave his job as Middle East editor and called on the BBC to publish a correction prominently on its website.
'If he cannot get this right, it's difficult to see what else he can get right in relation to Israel,' Mr Turner said.
'You cannot understand what's happening today unless you have a proper understanding of what happened in '67.
'Clearly he doesn't have a proper understanding, so for that reason I think his position is untenable.'
Mr Turner, a barrister from London, said pursuing the complaint in his spare time had been an 'enormous burden'.
He described speed of the complaints process as 'outrageous'.
He made his original complaint about both the Six Day War article - published in July 2007 - and the From Our Own Correspondent broadcast in January 2008.
In today's report, the BBC Trust apologised for the 'exceptionally long time' taken over the complaint.
No disciplinary action is expected against Bowen, but the web article will be revised and a link added to the editorial standards committee's findings.
A spokesman for BBC News said: 'This is a single partially upheld finding related to one piece of output about events that took place over forty years ago and our Middle East editor was simply exercising his professional judgment on history.
'Clearly there is no consensus view of history and it is self evident that there are others who have different analysis - which of course they are entitled to.'
The committee accepted that Bowen was using his professional judgment in the From Our Own Correspondent piece, the spokesman said, but should have sourced his comment.
'This has absolutely nothing to do with bias, and we of course note the findings,' the spokesman said.
'We would also point out that the committee accepted that the Middle East Editor had been informed that that was the American view by an authoritative source.'

[steevo]

Most everything they do is calculated, its not as if a light bulb suddenly flashes giving deeper understanding. Its increasingly clear you'll get a new Prime Minister and possible Tory majority. This has got to be first and foremost on the Beeb's mind. I have noticed here in the States since the first weeks of the Obama administration our media is a bit more balanced concerning its coverage of Israel. I believe its to help justify "tough" decisions by our new State Department which by necessity will not forsake or seriously weaken the Jews leading to an increase of violence, chaos and destruction. They are no friend of Israel but they have to be humane (practical) with their foreign policy image.

[Teddy Bear]

I'm rather sceptical about whether it will make any real difference which party gets in to power. They all seem to be largely corrupt and self-serving while seemingly appeasing whatever line the majority left leaning media takes.
I'd be interested to hear about developments in the States following Obama's rise to power if you perceive any actual changes Steevo.

[Teddy Bear]

Honest Reporting go into greater detail about Bowen's Biased Coverage with the possibility at the end of the article to sign a petition to demand more action.

Special Alert: BBC Mideast Editor Guilty of Inaccuracy on Israel

BBC's Mideast editor rebuked for breaching impartiality and accuracy rules.

For many years, HonestReporting has criticized the BBC's veteran reporter and Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen for his anti-Israel bias. Now the BBC itself agrees.

As reported by major UK newspapers, including The Guardian, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent and Daily Mail as well as by the BBC itself, the BBC Trust, which oversees complaints to the British state broadcaster, has ruled that Bowen's coverage of Israel in an article on the BBC's Web site and a radio broadcast was partially inaccurate and that aspects of the Internet article lacked impartiality

In a piece Bowen wrote for the BBC website last June under the headline "Six days that changed the Middle East," about the Six Day War, which was criticized at the time by HonestReporting UK, Bowen referred to "Zionism's innate instinct to push out the frontier". He also wrote that Israel showed a "defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own" and that its generals felt that they were dealing with "unfinished business", left over from the 1948 War of Independence. These references were deemed inaccurate or lacking impartiality by the BBC Trust:

"Readers might come away from the article thinking that the interpretation offered was the only sensible view of the war," it said. "It was not necessary for equal space to be given to the other arguments, but ... the existence of alternative theses should have been more clearly signposted."

The second finding related to a broadcast Bowen delivered on From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 in January 2008, in which Bowen said the US government considered the Israeli town of Har Homa on the outskirts of Jerusalem as illegal.

The committee found the assertion was inadequately sourced: "The Middle East Editor had stated his professional view without qualification or explanation, and that the lack of precision in his language had rendered the statement inaccurate." It ruled the report had partially breached accuracy guidelines.

BOWEN: A HISTORY OF BIAS

The BBC appointed Jeremy Bowen to the newly-created role of Middle East Editor in June 2005 "to enhance our audience's understanding of the Middle East; and to provide extra commentary, focus and analysis to an increasingly complex area of the world."

We believed that Jeremy Bowen, instead of being a solution to the BBC's problematic reporting, would become a major part of the problem - a view confirmed by the fact that no other journalist has so consistently featured in HonestReporting and its UK affiliate's critiques over the years.

In an attempt to minimize the seriousness of the BBC Trust findings, the BBC spokesman said: "This is a single, partially upheld finding, related to one piece of output about events that took place over 40 years ago, and our Middle East editor was simply exercising his professional judgment on history. Clearly there is no consensus view of history and it is self evident that there are others who have different analysis - which of course they are entitled to."

The findings of the BBC Trust (which can be viewed in full here in PDF format) have prompted calls for Bowen's dismissal. However, the BBC Trust report is only the tip of a very large iceberg. The reality is that this is only the latest in a long history of anti-Israel bias on the part of both Bowen individually and BBC News.

Here is but a small selection of Bowen's litany of bias in recent years:

• May 2006: Failing to assign any responsibility to the Palestinians for intra-Palestinian violence in the Gaza Strip, Bowen still refers to "the pressure that never goes away, which comes from the Israeli occupation," despite Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.
  
• Jan 2007: Former Times columnist and current Jewish Chronicle editor Stephen Pollard acquires a leaked e-mail from Bowen to BBC staff revealing his slanted analysis, which also came under fire from the Wall Street Journal. As Pollard states: "Indeed, Israel is to blame for almost everything. The Palestinians are not responsible for anything; Israel is the culpable party. He has contempt for every Israeli politician he mentions; Ehud Barak, for instance, is described as having killed "various Palestinians", written as if he did so for the sake of it. If this is what passes for high-level analysis at the BBC, is it any wonder its reporting is so poisonous?"
  
• Jan 2007: Bowen produces an unbalanced radio report questioning whether a two-state solution is still a realistic prospect. Failing to acknowledge Israeli security concerns, Palestinian suicide bombers or intra-Palestinian violence and chaos, Bowen discusses restrictions on Palestinian movement and the security barrier near Bethlehem, as well as "illegal" Israeli settlement in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank.
  
• Feb 2007: As a result of these examples and continuing BBC bias, the UK's Zionist Federation calls for Bowen's removal as Mideast editor.
  
• Dec 2007: Again, attributing sole responsibility for Palestinian hardship to Israel, Bowen claims that a major reason for the economic problems are: "because of measures Israel has imposed, which it says are vital to the security of its people, that put real difficulties in the way of Palestinians moving. It's impossible, pretty much, to get out of Gaza - it's often described by Palestinians as a prison and I think that's pretty accurate; and there are areas of the West Bank... which are not much better than that."
  
• May 2008: HonestReporting thoroughly critiques Bowen's BBC documentary "The Birth of Israel". Full of omissions and historical revisionism, Bowen either downplays, delegitimizes or altogether ignores the legitimate roots of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel going back three millennia. Instead, the Arabs are painted as victims of Jewish power and malevolence.
  
• March 2009: Bowen keeps a running diary during the Gaza conflict. In one entry, he publicizes a shocking claim made by a Palestinian woman that her husband and 4-year-old son had been shot in cold blood by Israeli soldiers. This, despite no supporting evidence or any other media coverage of such a serious charge.

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BOWEN: AN UNTENABLE POSITION

HonestReporting has produced a number of long-term analyses of the BBC, the most recent from March 2009, comprehensively detailing major problems with the BBC's output. As Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen bears a great deal of responsibility for this.

A BBC spokesman, in response to the BBC Trust report referred to an independent panel of inquiry into the BBC's coverage of Israel and the Palestinians: The Thomas Report [of April 2006] was instituted by the then BBC governors, and said of the BBC's coverage overall:

"Our assessment is that, apart from individual lapses, there was little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias. On the contrary, there was evidence of a commitment to be fair, accurate and impartial. There is high quality reporting from location, some outstanding current affairs programs and the Web site provides much valuable historical and other context."

The Thomas Report, however, was deeply flawed because the BBC announced that it would be carrying out that review in advance, so that journalists, editors and managers bent over backwards to avoid anti-Israel bias during the period of the review. This is corroborated by the fact that during the period of the review, the normal pattern of complaints (i.e. more complaints of anti-Israel bias than of pro-Israel bias) was reversed. No reliance can be placed on the review in relation to coverage before or after the period of the review.

A GRASSROOTS INITIATIVE

Perhaps the greatest endorsement of the BBC Trust's findings is the reaction of notorious anti-Israel polemicist Robert Fisk, who describes the report in The Independent as "pusillanimous, cowardly, outrageous, factually wrong and ethically dishonest." Fisk goes on to say:

The trust – how I love that word which so dishonours everything about the BBC – has collapsed, in the most shameful way, against the usual Israeli lobbyists who have claimed – against all the facts – that Bowen was wrong to tell the truth.

HonestReporting has long-argued against this perverted notion that media organizations and critics of Israel are being silenced and beaten into submission by an "Israel Lobby". Fisk employs this smokescreen, employing the term "Israel Lobby" to cover up and distract attention from the genuine issue at hand. Indeed, perhaps Fisk would like to consider the fact that the complainant to the BBC Trust was an individual British lawyer who persevered, refusing to accept the delays, obfuscation and stalling tactics of the BBC complaints procedure until he achieved a result.

While this individual is a member of the UK's Zionist Federation, his efforts were made as an individual and not as part of some organized "lobby". HonestReporting's model is also based on encouraging the efforts of you - the grassroots - who can and do make a difference in addressing media bias.

SIGN THE PETITION: RELEASE THE BALEN REPORT

Several years ago, the BBC conducted its own investigation into whether the network held an anti-Israel bias. The result -- a report by senior news editor Malcolm Balen -- was a lengthy study that the corporation refuses to make public. In an ongoing legal battle to force the BBC to make the report public, the British House of Lords recently ruled against the BBC and sent the case back to the High Court. We hope the High Court will force the BBC to release its study into the public domain.

The BBC has made it clear that it will not, as of this time, take any sanctions against Jeremy Bowen. But the BBC's extraordinary efforts to keep the Balen Report hidden would seem to suggest that the BBC knows that there is a serious problem with its Mideast output.

[glow=red,2,300]It's high time that the BBC releases the Balen Report and demonstrates the transparency that a publicly funded media organization should display. Please sign our petition and forward it to your friends and family to demand that the BBC does the right thing.[/glow]

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[steevo]

Apr 17, 2009 19:09:14 GMT Teddy Bear said:

I'm rather sceptical about whether it will make any real difference which party gets in to power. They all seem to be largely corrupt and self-serving while seemingly appeasing whatever line the majority left leaning media takes.
I'd be interested to hear about developments in the States following Obama's rise to power if you perceive any actual changes Steevo.

There have been a few like this over the UN conference. I can only tell you that if Bush was in office this headline and article slant never would've been written. Tho nothing like Anne Bayevsky' rebuke they give some serious implication about the UN as racist and our president O, justified. It feels strange as an American having big media hold up our president morally over one of their favorite institutions

US boycotting, Iran starring, at UN racism meeting

[Teddy Bear]

Because the media does its best to appease Muslims it will naturally favour any leader that follows this course. I note that Obama wanted initially to participate in the Durban II conference, much to the delight of the Islamic world, until he was 'convinced' it might not be the best idea for him to do so.