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Just Journalism Newsletter 17 April 2009

BBC Trust upholds complaints against Bowen On Wednesday, the BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee released a report which partially upheld complaints against BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen's coverage of Israel. The report, which ran to 119 pages, covered numerous criticisms of a BBC news website article, "How 1967 defined the Middle East," and a radio broadcast of "From Our Own Correspondent". Read the full report here. The article: "How 1967 defined the Middle East", BBC News website, 4 June 2007 The report concluded that the website article had partially breached editorial guidelines on accuracy in three specific instances, and editorial guidelines on impartiality in general. The following three statements were found to have breached guidelines: · 'The Israeli generals, hugely self-confident, mainly sabras (native-born Israeli Jews) in their late 30s and early 40s, had been training to finish the unfinished business of Israel's independence war of 1948 for most of their careers' · The article's reference to Zionism's 'innate instinct to push out the frontier' · The statement that Israel was 'in defiance of everyone's interpretation of international law except its own' On the general breach of impartiality, the report noted that even though the article was in the 'news' section of the website, the material should still have been treated as a matter of 'political controversy' and also that the article was not a 'personal view' so the personal view guidelines did not apply.  The broadcast: 'From Our Own Correspondent', 12 January 2008   The BBC Trust report also dealt with criticism of a radio broadcast by Jeremy Bowen from the Har Homa settlement, as part of the 'From Our Own Correspondent' series. During the broadcast, Bowen stated that Har Homa was considered illegal by the United States. This fact was found to be unsubstantiated by the Trust and therefore breached BBC guidelines on impartiality as a result. The media response: The story was reported in most of the daily newspapers, however, The Independent gave it the most prominence. 'Under fire' by Ian Burrell was Thursday's front page story and was accompanied by an opinion piece by Robert Fisk as well as an editorial entitled, 'Bad judgment'. This article opined that the BBC Trust's criticism of Bowen 'demonstrat[ed] a terrible absence of good judgement", and that the body 'needs to learn that accountability does not mean swallowing every complaint uncritically'. In fact, the majority of the complaints submitted by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting as well as by British barrister Jonathan Turner were rejected. In 'How can you trust the cowardly BBC?' Robert Fisk described the report as 'pusillanimous, cowardly, outrageous, factually wrong and ethically dishonest' and accused the BBC Trust of both 'collaps[ing], in the most shameful way, against the usual Israel lobbyists' and of being 'a mouth-piece for the Israel lobby'. Today, BBC Trust Chairman Sir Michael Lyons defended the Trust's position in The Independent, describing claims in the publication's front page story as, 'not just utterly false, but also baffling.' In another editorial today, The Independent described Jeremy Bowen's censure as, 'shooting the messenger'. TOP For more information or to contact us, please visit www.justjournalism.com Just Journalism does not endorse the views and opinions presented in the articles, documentaries and programmes referred to above.