BBC suing to supress critical report on Middle-East coverage

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Nemesis6

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I guess it's never too late to post this -
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.

The court case will have far reaching implications for the future working of the Act and the BBC. If the corporation loses, it will have to release thousands of pages of other documents that have been held back.

Like all public bodies, the BBC is obliged to release information about itself under the Act. However, along with Channel 4, Britain’s other public service broadcaster, it is allowed to hold back material that deals with the production of its art, entertainment and journalism.

The High Court action is the latest stage of a lengthy and expensive battle by Steven Sugar, a lawyer, to get access to the document, which was compiled by Malcolm Balen, a senior editorial adviser, in 2004.

Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, who is responsible for the workings of the Act, agreed with the BBC that the document, which examines hundreds of hours of its radio and television broadcasts, could be held back. However, Mr Sugar appealed and, after a two-day hearing at which the BBC was represented by two barristers, the Information Tribunal found in his favour.

Mr Sugar said: “This is a serious report about a serious issue and has been compiled with public money. I lodged the request because I was concerned that the BBC’s reporting of the second intifada was seriously unbalanced against Israel, but I think there are other issues at stake now in the light of the BBC’s reaction.”

The BBC’s coverage of the Middle East has been frequently condemned for a perceived anti-Israeli bias.

In 2004, for example, Barbara Plett, a Middle East correspondent, was criticised for revealing in an episode of Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent that she had been moved to tears by the plight of the dying Yasser Arafat. MPs said it proved that the corporation was incapable of presenting a balanced account of issues in the Middle East.
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Link to article - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=411846&in_page_id=1770

Of course they're biased. They admit so themselves -

It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.

A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’ ...

The full account of the meeting shows how senior BBC figures queued up to lambast their employer.

Political pundit Andrew Marr said: ‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.’

Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to ‘correct’, it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it ‘no moral weight’.

Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a ‘very senior news executive’, about the BBC’s pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: ‘The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.’

Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: ‘You can’t do that, that’s like the National Front!’
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Link to article -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/15/nbeeb15.xml

And if that isn't enough to convince you, you can browse through about 4 years of documentation of their bias here - http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/

Big trouble at the beeb.
 
Ofcourse they're biased, i cant think of any media that isnt in some way biased either Left or Right or whatever political view :p.
I didnt know this info on the BBC though, *reads links.
 
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I wasn't imagining it when I noticed the BBC omitting to report things that paint Muslims in a bad light.
Thanks for posting this.
 
I wouldnt take too much notice of this , its from the daily mail after all (very right-wing gutter press newspaper) and the Telegraph is just an upmarket equivalent of the same.
The BBC gets it in the neck from both sides all the time, the percieved bias says more about the complainers viewpoint than anything else.
 
Doesn't take a genius (or reading a shoddy version of The Sun) to realise the BBC leans very slightly to the left.
 
Well Duh!!! Offcourse it's a left wing organization, you can't be fair and balanced without beeing a lefty.
 
Gray Fox said:
Well Duh!!! Offcourse it's a left wing organization, you can't be fair and balanced without beeing a lefty.
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Now, I'm unsure whether that statement is a double entendre or plain and simple sarcasm...

*scratches head*

Damn you Internet!
 
SAJ said:
I wouldnt take too much notice of this , its from the daily mail after all (very right-wing gutter press newspaper) and the Telegraph is just an upmarket equivalent of the same.
The BBC gets it in the neck from both sides all the time, the percieved bias says more about the complainers viewpoint than anything else.
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Dont take notice because the source is right-wing biased... yet.... do take notice from left-wing biased sources?

Why not read both, and hope you'll then have a balanced opinion?
 
Freedom Of Information act only applies to information generated by the government (as I understand it), I don't think the report was written by the government, so that's a very stupid and misrepresentative argument to even be starting with. Very poor, biased source you've used there.
I agree the BBC is a bit biased, in some instances, but it's a healthy and totally neccessary balance to the voracious moronic xenophobia and right-wing attitudes in the lower reaches of print journalism. It's unfortunate that we as a nation are not in a place where public opinion would remain somewhat sane if the BBC was unbiased and totally objective, but while the Scum, sorry I mean the Sun, is the best selling 'newspaper', the BBC's occasional left-wing (whatever that means these days)/liberal bias is entirely neccessary for balance in public discourse. Also, bear in mind that BBC news is the second largest news agency (by staff) in the world - there are a lot of journalists reporting and writing on a lot of stories about a lot of people. I think you could probably prove the BBC to have any bias you wanted to by presenting selective bits of reporting and editorial.
Yes, it's difficult that BBC news is paid by the compulsary license fee, but as it has been said, it's nearly impossible for any news reportage to be entirely unbiased, and I think the BBC comes closer than any other major UK news agency or newspaper.
 
Unintentional thread killage ftl.


Or was that an uncharacteristically good post?
 
pomegranate said:
Freedom Of Information act only applies to information generated by the government (as I understand it), I don't think the report was written by the government, so that's a very stupid and misrepresentative argument to even be starting with. Very poor, biased source you've used there.
I agree the BBC is a bit biased, in some instances, but it's a healthy and totally neccessary balance to the voracious moronic xenophobia and right-wing attitudes in the lower reaches of print journalism. It's unfortunate that we as a nation are not in a place where public opinion would remain somewhat sane if the BBC was unbiased and totally objective, but while the Scum, sorry I mean the Sun, is the best selling 'newspaper', the BBC's occasional left-wing (whatever that means these days)/liberal bias is entirely neccessary for balance in public discourse. Also, bear in mind that BBC news is the second largest news agency (by staff) in the world - there are a lot of journalists reporting and writing on a lot of stories about a lot of people. I think you could probably prove the BBC to have any bias you wanted to by presenting selective bits of reporting and editorial.
Yes, it's difficult that BBC news is paid by the compulsary license fee, but as it has been said, it's nearly impossible for any news reportage to be entirely unbiased, and I think the BBC comes closer than any other major UK news agency or newspaper.
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People expect the Sun to be shit. It doesn't pretend to be anything else but trash journalism.
People expect the BBC to be unbiased. In fact, they're legally obliged to be. Their bias is insiduous and unnoticeable to the untrained eye, unlike the tabloids', which is obvious.
 
oh noes the liberal bias, be afraid!!!!111

..excuse for being presumptious but are they outright fabricating information and passing it off as news? because unless they're publishing outright lies bias in media is a foregone conclusion and something meant to be taken with a grain of salt
 
CptStern said:
oh noes the liberal bias, be afraid!!!!111

..excuse for being presumptious but are they outright fabricating information and passing it off as news? because unless they're publishing outright lies bias in media is a foregone conclusion and something meant to be taken with a grain of salt
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You have to understand that the BBC is practically worshipped for its apparent journalistic integrity and factual reporting. This is a lot different to "oh no Fox News is biased!"
 
Yeah, the BBC doing something like this is sorta like Bill Oddie skinning a crocodile on daytime TV - It just doesnt happen :p
 
repiV said:
You have to understand that the BBC is practically worshipped for its apparent journalistic integrity and factual reporting. This is a lot different to "oh no Fox News is biased!"
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and? my statement still stands ..btw ..you dont think this statement is a little biased?


your links said:
‘The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It’s a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people.
At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities
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what does their sexuality or ethnic background have to do with anything?
 
repiV said:
People expect the Sun to be shit. It doesn't pretend to be anything else but trash journalism.
People expect the BBC to be unbiased. In fact, they're legally obliged to be. Their bias is insiduous and unnoticeable to the untrained eye, unlike the tabloids', which is obvious.
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Most people who read the Sun aren't familiar with the concept of media bias, so whether it is obviously shit or not is moot. They just take the information presented and the way it is presented on face value.
People who can see bias can see it wherever it is exists. Some people can't see it at all.
 
I think it's been shown again and again that the least biased news, at least in today's political climate, all but always is left leaning.

Quoting the colbert report, "reality has a liberal bias".


Not to mention that newspeople are mostly economically conservative, given that they are high-income television celebrities and otherwise rich people.
 
lol, the BBC biased against israel. what a joke. if the BBC is guilty of anything in its reporting of the occupation and intifada it's guilty of making no sense of events whatsoever, leaving readers & viewers who get their information about the situation largely from the BBC itself completely confused. they use expressions like "cycle of violence" a lot (obscuring the fact that palestinian violence is a reaction to israel's violent and totally illegal occupation of palestinian land) and routinely describe israel's violence as "retaliation" against palestinian violence, while the truth is the reverse of this

don't forget that there are legions of zionist fellow travellers out there who view anything less than a slavish adherence to the israeli government line as 'anti-israeli' (or even 'anti-semitic') and indicative of bias. getting angry about a lack of 110% subservience to israel on the part of this or that writer, journalist or broadcaster is a veritable industry, especially in the US, but also in the UK

on the other hand, the BBC is in my opinion guilty of much worse in its coverage of the lead-up to the iraq war, which was pathetic beyond belief, as is their current coverage of the situation with iran. in the case of iraq, they failed to make any serious criticism of the US/UK government claims about WMD; while in the case of iran, their commitment to 'balance' consists of a 'he said, she said' paragraph about western accusations and iranian denials at the end of every piece on their website - while never mentioning the fact that no one has ever presented a single piece of hard evidence for any iranian nuke program. likewise they focus on the idiot rantings of ahmedinejad without ever mentioning that the iranian president has little power, and that the real decision making power rests with ayatollah ali khamenei, who a few years ago delivered a fatwa against nuclear weapons. funny how we took khomeini's fatwa against rushdie so seriously, yet totally ignore this one...
 
I love being centrist, it means I can hate you all equally :D

-Angry Lawyer
 
That link deserves a quote
According to the Mail on Sunday, and other recent press reports, we have admitted that we are an organisation of trendy, left-leaning liberals who are anti-American, biased against Christianity, in favour of multiculturalism, and staffed by people who wouldn’t know an unbiased fact if it hit them on the head.

The Mail on Sunday based its story on a leak from what it called a “secret” meeting of BBC executives and governors, and claims that it was our former political editor, Andrew Marr himself, who confessed to the liberal bias of the organisation. His take was reinforced by Jeff Randall, who until recently was our business editor. “If they say it, then it must be true” was the thrust of the story.

Well I was one of the people who was at the "secret" meeting. and I have to say the reality was somewhat different to the way the press are reporting it.

For a start, this wasn’t a secret meeting... it was streamed live on the web. The meeting was made up of executives, governors and lots of non-BBC people like John Lloyd from the FT and Janet Daley from the Daily Telegraph. It was planned as a serious seminar to investigate and understand better the BBC’s commitment to impartiality in an age in which spin and opinion riddle much of the world’s journalism. The seminar was part of a bigger project kicked off by Michael Grade earlier this year to re-examine the underlying principles of impartiality in the digital age when boundaries between conventional broadcasting and the new platforms will increasingly disappear.

To keep us all on our toes, a rich variety of formats was used during the day. I was on a "Hypothetical" – where a panel of people in charge is given a series of mounting “real life” crises and asked how they would handle each of them. It was fun, occasionally illuminating, and often very challenging. ........
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Read the rest at the link in the post above.

The Daily Mails's motto ? "Never let the truth get in the way of reactionary bullshit !"
 
They say the meeting was streamed, is it also possible to download it.
 
SAJ said:
That link deserves a quote Read the rest at the link in the post above.

The Daily Mails's motto ? "Never let the truth get in the way of reactionary bullshit !"
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Typical Daily Mail tactics. I think its also apparent in their reporting on things like the EU - a hypothetical situation mentioned in passing by a Brussels Bureocrat suddenly becomes evidence of an evil European plot to ban cricket and outlaw tea and crumpets D:
 
To be fair, the Daily Mail did support the fascist blackshirts, and Hitler, in the 1930s, only withdrawing support a few weeks before the UK and France went to war with Germany. So it's quite funny reading about them accusing other newsources of bias.

I look forward to reading about this in Private Eye.
 
Ah, so that's why Red Ken called a Jewish reporter from that paper a concentration camp guard. Ken is such a lovely guy.

But that's beside the point... I'll take whatever argument I can get against the BBC. Almost. The thing is, The Daily Mail seems to have changed. For the positive. The BBC has changed, too. But for the negative.
 
586FAC75 said:
Doesn't take a genius (or reading a shoddy version of The Sun) to realise the BBC leans very slightly to the left.
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slightly to left is better then slighty to the right when it comes to the media imo....
 
Nemesis6 said:
Ah, so that's why Red Ken called a Jewish reporter from that paper a concentration camp guard. Ken is such a lovely guy.

But that's beside the point... I'll take whatever argument I can get against the BBC. Almost. The thing is, The Daily Mail seems to have changed. For the positive. The BBC has changed, too. But for the negative.
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Aye, its fantastic, why my local church use it instead of bibles.
All hail the Daily Mail we sing, more facts than an encyclopedia.
 
Maybe because he's fed up of paying his licence fee every year, and wants justification to see it scrapped?
 
Nemesis6 said:
Ah, so that's why Red Ken called a Jewish reporter from that paper a concentration camp guard. Ken is such a lovely guy.
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Retard. You must be ignorant of these facts:
Livingstone did not know that the reporter was Jewish when he insulted him that way.
The reporter had been hassling Livingstone and waging a vendetta in his paper against him, and when Livingstone confronted him about it, the reporter tried to justify it by saying he was 'just doing his job', which is a total cop-out, the same justification the proverbial concentration camp guard would use. Hence, it's a pretty fitting comparision, and a pretty common one used when people say 'I'm just doing my job' to justify being an arsehole.
 
pomegranate said:
Retard. You must be ignorant of these facts:
Livingstone did not know that the reporter was Jewish when he insulted him that way.
The reporter had been hassling Livingstone and waging a vendetta in his paper against him, and when Livingstone confronted him about it, the reporter tried to justify it by saying he was 'just doing his job', which is a total cop-out, the same justification the proverbial concentration camp guard would use. Hence, it's a pretty fitting comparision, and a pretty common one used when people say 'I'm just doing my job' to justify being an arsehole.
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To you, sir, I will say the following: Nanny nanny. Looks like I hit a soft spot with that post.

By the way, Kirovman, I'm not British! Although I do oppose paying license for something that does not own up to its expected impartiality.
 
People witlessly regurgitating biased and highly spun tabloid journalism? Yeah, you could say that's a sore spot. SORRY!
 
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