Biased BBC discusses the unfortunate news of a legal decision by the UK’s courts to allow the BBC to keep the Balen Report on the bias of BBC’s Middle East coverage secret. The decision’s reasoning seems in line with the “Goldstone Standard” of Kafkaesque legal reasoning. But what the extensive effort of the BBC to keep this report under wraps reveals most, is how afraid they are that, if the public were to see hard evidence of their bias — from their own report — they would lose the confidence of their readers. It would be a weapon in the hands of pro-Israel activists to use against the BBC — a double horror. It reminds me of Charles Enderlin telling Esther Schapira that he would not give Israel the raw footage because he had no intention of allowing them to “whitewash themselves.”

The article is itself incomprehensible to me and I make several appeals for help in understanding. If anyone has more material on this, please post it.

Last Updated: Friday, 27 April 2007, 13:49 GMT 14:49 UK

BBC report to remain confidential

The report looked at the BBC’s news coverage of the Middle East

The BBC has won a legal battle to keep the contents of an internal review of its Middle East reporting confidential. A judge overturned an order that the report should be made public under Freedom of Information laws.

London lawyer Steven Sugar, who had asked to see the document, said he hoped the BBC Trust might reconsider and publish it in the public interest.

The BBC, which had been accused of biased reporting against Israel, has welcomed the High Court ruling.

It had argued the so-called Balen report – named after the senior editor who wrote it – had been produced “for purposes of journalism”, and therefore fell outside the scope of right-to-know laws.

Nice. And do we have any evidence that the BBC has used it in this fashion? Shall we conduct another study on the (invisible) impact of the Balen report on BBC Middle East coverage since its appearance?

The information commissioner agreed, but Mr Sugar took the case to appeal and the Information Tribunal backed him.

‘Technical win’

Mr Justice Davis, sitting in the High Court, accepted the Corporation’s argument that the tribunal had no jurisdiction in a case where a public service broadcaster and the information commissioner agreed documents fell outside the scope of the act.

I need help here. Are they saying that if the public service broadcaster wishes to hide a negative report from the public, and the information minister agrees, then hide it? What about the arguments involved? Is that why it’s a technical win?

The judge described the position as “most odd” and “potentially inconvenient in its consequence”.

There were, said Mr Justice Davis, “powerful reasons in favour of there being a right of appeal to the tribunal in circumstances such as the present”.

I don’t understand. Am I stupid, or is this badly written? Or is it addressed to insiders? Can someone explain?

Commercial solicitor Mr Sugar, from Putney in south London, described the ruling as a “technical win” for the BBC.

He added: “Perhaps the BBC Trust under its new chairman, will take a different view from BBC management and conclude it is in the public interest for Mr Balen’s report to be published.”

Who’s the new chairman and why would he change? Arlette Chabot came in after the al Durah affair and didn’t change anything. I’m not ruling it out, just asking.

Bias allegations

Mr Sugar said the government now needed to look again at the way the act was framed.
“It is clear that the journalism exception was introduced into the Freedom of Information Act principally in order to prevent access to broadcasters’ out-takes,” he said.

Are outtakes the same as rushes? And if so, shouldn’t at least some oversight groups be allowed to examine outtakes of material that looks highly suspicious?

“But unfortunately the exception was drafted in general terms which has allowed its use to prevent the public gaining access to much material which I am sure the government intended should be publicly available”

Critics of the corporation’s Middle East coverage had wanted it made public, suspecting it would show the BBC itself had found evidence of anti-Israel bias in its news coverage of the region.

The BBC had said it was vital for independent journalism that debates among its staff about how it covered stories did not have to be opened up to the public gaze.

This is choice. We journalists are in the job of washing everyone else’s dirty laundry in public, but heaven forbid we engage in the same process. Reminds me of Enderlin’s defenders insisting that the court’s listening to Karsenty was infringing on the freedom of the press. I’d sooner say “unaccountability of the press.” I guess that’s a kind of freedom, but if these guys were real liberals, they’d realize that a freedom that deprives fellow citizens of freedom is oppression, not freedom.

A statement from the corporation said:

The Balen report was always intended as an internal review of programme content, to inform future output. It was never intended for publication… 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 new output was covered.

Members of the public had other ways of joining the debate over impartiality it said.

Wow. This belongs in the annals of how the emperor kept the crowd from acknowledging his nakedness. We really need an update of the story; after all, the original is all about live responses. Now virtually everything is mediated.