Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Jeremy Bowen accurate and impartial?

I almost missed this... If I had not happened to catch the review of the Press on BBC Radio 4 last Thursday.  The Independent has leapt to the defence of Jeremy Bowen,  the BBC's Middle East Editor;  they said they had always found his reporting of Israel and Palestine fair-minded and balanced (they would do, wouldn't they?)

The BBC Trust (formerly "the Governors") had upheld some complaints on the grounds of inaccuracy and lack of impartiality.  Other points of complaint though were not upheld.  Details can be found here.

The complaints date back to an article published on the BBC website at the time of the  of  “Six Days That Changed The Middle East”,  which was broadcast in June 2007 and is still available as an MP3 download.  I remember at that time thinking the series showed considerable bias and noting the following blog post - 30.05.07 : ROOTS :
I hear Jeremy Bowen is to do a series of programmes on the 1967 Six Day War.  Distrusting his reports generally,  I am apprehensive as to what he'll do with it.  But we shall see.
But someone evidently that the patience to follow it through the various stages of the complaints procedure.  For which I have great admiration.