Freedom of Information is very important to the BBC

This BBC article bemoans the way that the government doesn't comply with Freedom of Information requests, it's an interesting article and worth a read. However I'd take Michael Buchanan, BBC Social Affairs Correspondent more seriously were he not working for an organisation that routinely refuses to divulge information when in receipt of an FOI request. 

There are numerous examples of this culture of secrecy at the BBC but possibly the most disgusting is their refusal to release the Balen Report. If you don't know what the Balen Report is, then here's Wikipedia:

'The Balen Report is a 20,000 word document written by the senior broadcasting journalist Malcolm Balen in 2004 after examining thousands of hours of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The report was commissioned by former BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, following persistent complaints from the public and the Israeli government of allegations of anti-Israel bias.

It is a legal obligation for the Corporation to be impartial which is why this Report is so important. Well-known examples of purported bias are: BBC's correspondent in Jerusalem 2004, Barbara Plett who broadcast Yasser Arafat's exit to hospital "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound I started to cry ...".

Eventually one year later Helen Boaden, Head of BBC News admitted this was "an editorial misjudgment". There have been similar issues since the report. In 2006 Middle-East correspondent Orla Guerin claimed the Town of Bint Jbeil had been 'wiped out' by the Israelis and showed footage to support this. It had not in fact been wiped out and Channel 4's Alex Thomson, the same day, reported ( from the same street) that the town was "pretty much untouched by the Israeli attack". In fact when the two new's reports were compared it became clear Guerin had completely misled the public. in 2005 The Israeli government accused Ms Guerin of being 'anti-Semitic' in her reporting of a would-be suicide bomber.'

 It is estimated that the BBC has spent over £200,000 of licence payers money on keeping the Balen Report secret.

Just how damning must the Balen Report have been for the BBC to be so desperate to keep it under wraps?

Former BBC Chairman condemns BBC coverage on violence in Israel per Conservative Friends of Israel

Lord Grade, the former Chairman of the BBC, has written to the BBC to complain about the BBC's biased reporting of the latest events in Israel. 

'Former Chairman of the BBC, Lord Grade of Yarmouth CBE, has expressed concern about the BBC's coverage of the recent violence in Israel and the West Bank, in a letter to the organisations' Director of News and Current Affairs, James Harding.

In his complaint, Lord Grade said that the BBC coverage was at times misleading and failed to provide a wider context of what is an "undoubtedly complex issue".

Lord Grade criticised the BBC's inability "to fulfil its obligation to viewers" by not showing viewers examples of Palestinian Authority officials praising the attacks and calling for more. The former BBC Chairman underlined that Palestinian incitement, "has played an undeniable part in stoking tension recently and is an important part of the story".

The complaint was directed at a report by Orla Guerin on Sunday October 11th, about the recent wave of attacks across Israel.

Lord Grade criticised the report's apparent promotion of "equivalence between Israeli victims of terrorism and Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli security forces in the act of carrying out terror attacks".

He highlighted that: "An emotional interview is conducted with the father of a dead Palestinian youth who had been killed committing a fatal terror attack. However, the report failed to show the emotional distress caused to Israelis by any of these recent attacks. This is inexcusable".Islamic 

Lord Grade continued: "Additionally, it was improper of the correspondent to claim that "there's no sign of involvement by militant groups", before immediately showing footage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) banners at the home of a 19 year-old terrorist who carried out a deadly knife attack at Lions Gate in Jerusalem on 3rd October. PIJ is a well-known Palestinian terror organisation and it has since claimed responsibility for the attack and praised by Hamas, another internationally proscribed terror organisation. This directly misleads viewers".'

More here https://cfoi.co.uk/former-bbc-chairman-condemns-bbc-coverage-on-violence-in-israel/

If only there was an independent report into the BBC's reporting of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict that the BBC could use to show that they weren't and aren't biased against Israel. Maybe the BBC could reassure Lord Grade and others by releasing the Balen Report, that must have given the BBC a clean bill of health...

Some background on Orla Guerin

'In 2002, Guerin claimed she had been targeted by Israeli soldiers who, she said, deliberately shot at her during a demonstration in Bethlehem. A year later Israel boycotted the BBC after accusing her of "deep-seated bias" in her reports. Then, in 2006, during the war in Lebanon she was accused of misreporting when she claimed a town near the Israel border had been "wiped out" by Israeli forces. "I haven't seen a single building that isn't damaged in some way," she said.

But Alex Thomson, filing for Channel 4 from the same town, Bint Jbeil, on the same day, presented a different perspective. He reported that the suburbs of the town "are pretty much untouched by the Israeli attack".'

And people wonder why the BBC have kept the Balen Report secret, what did that report reveal?

More here http://www.standard.co.uk/news/the-secret-report-at-heart-of-bbc-s-gaza-paranoia-6870301.html but not in the BBC where the likes of Jeremy Bowen, Orla Guerin Yolande Knell and Lyse Doucett are given free reign.

OPINION - Sir Eric Pickles: ‘We deserve better reporting of these evil attacks’ per Jewish News

'... On Sunday, 11 October, correspondent Orla Guerin produced an extraordinary report on the recent wave of attacks that claimed "there's no sign of involvement by militant groups", before immediately showing footage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad banners at the home of a 19-year-old terrorist who carried out a deadly knife attack at Lions Gate in Jerusalem on 3 October.'

More good sense here at the Jewish News

More anti Israel bile here at the anti_Israel BBC.

 

Release the #BalenReport

Orla Guerin - incompetent or deliberately offensive

The BBC's Orla Guerin presented another biased piece of reporting on the BBC News tonight. 

What was breathtaking was her statement that the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is sacred to both Muslims and Jews. Is this woman ignorant or being deliberately offensive? 

The Al Aqsa Mosque is not sacred to Jews. Part of the site of the mosque is built over the ruins of the Jewish Temple and so is the holiest site in Judaism. Of course the Israeli government stupidly prevents Jews from worshipping at their holiest site but allows Muslims to a) worship there and b) scream abuse at any Jew who dares to visit the site. Jews are actually prevented by Israeli police from saying any prayers at the holiest site in Judaism but it's Israel that's seen as victimising non Muslims.

I will be complaining to the BBC about this Orla Guerin report, I wonder what crock of shit response I'll get. 

Complaint lodged:

On tonight's News At Ten, Orla Guerin presented a report on the situation in Israel. During this report she said that Jerusalem's Al Aqsa mosque was sacred to both Muslims and Jews. This is factually incorect and offensive to Jews.

The Al Aqsa mosque is built on top of the site where the Jewish Temples stood before being destroyed. The site is the holiest site in Judaism but the Al Aqsa mosque itself is not sacred to Jews, it is rather is a symbol of Islamic invasion and dominance over Judaism right in the heart of the Jewish capital.

Jews are not allowed to pray on their holiest site. Israeli police stop them from doing so and Muslim Arab women are paid to spew abuse at Jews who try to visit the site, not enter the mosque just visit the Temple Mount,

Was Orla Guerin's statement the result of ignorance, in which case she should learn about the history of the region before reporting on it again, or was it just symptomatic of the BBC's anti-Israel bias?

Real ethnic cleansing in Iraq, not the fake sort in 'Palestine'

'Today, Qaraqosh stands 90 per cent empty, desecrated by the gunmen of the fanatical Islamic State terror group now in control. The majority of the town's 50,000 people have fled, fearing that, like other Christians in this region, they will be massacred.

The militants, in a further act of sacrilege, have established their administrative posts in the abandoned churches.'

More herehttp://www.liononasnowyday.com/news/message-vicar-baghdad/but not on the institutionally anti Israel BBC where the only only ethnic cleansing happens (even though it doesn't) in Israel and only Israel can be blamed for killing people. 

To the apparently pro Islamist BBC, criticism of Islamist terrorists might be seen as Islamophibic and so just not on.

Imagine the BBC coverage if Muslims were being swept out of Israel and their Mosques desecrated. It would be headline news and Orla Guerin or Lyse Doucet would be emoting over the horrors that they had seen, or rather their local stringers had told them about. Death tolls and the number of innocent civilians killed would be repeated in every article.

But when it's Christians and obscure sects being cleansed by Muslims, Shhh.