The British Broadcasting Corporation (B.B.C.) has released a report by
its own "internal complaints panel" acknowledging that Jeremy
Bowen, its Middle East Editor, has in two instances -once in 2007, the
other time in 2008- "breached...(its) guideline on accuracy and
impartiality." This was reported in Thursday's Ha'aretz in an article by the paper's very insightful reporter Cnaan Liphshiz (who
did a savvy interview with me a while
back.)
Here from
Ha'aretz:
In its
review, the Trust Editorial Standards Committee panel found that the 1967
article breaching the guideline
on
accuracy
in saying that Israel's settlements are "in defiance of everyone's
interpretation of international law except
its
own," and in referring to Zionism's "innate instinct to push
out the frontier."
The committee also found a statement in the radio show that the Har Homa
settlement in Jerusalem was considered illegal by the United States
breached the the B.B.C.'s guideline on accuracy, as well. The panel
also found great fault in the use of the phrase "unfinished
business" in the following sentence: "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."
Of course, the two years taken in the preparation of the report have left
Bowen and comrades in continuous control of mid-east coverage at the
B.B.C. Still its release yesterday has reminded almost
everyone of the 2004 Balen Report which has not yet been released.
Why do you think it has not been published? It is obvious. If
there were no or even few transgressions it would have been out long
ago.
Which brings to National Public Radio. To be sure, N.P.R. uses
B.B.C. dispatches all the time. They are not different from the
ones heard in London. But it is not thought of as National
Palestine Radio simply because of its reliance on the Brits. It has
its own seasoned anti-Israel team, the voice of which is Linda Gradstein,
a nice Jewish girl who gets her biased take mostly at the American Colony
Hotel, I am told. And then the editor, Loren Jenkins, has been in
the "hate Israel" line for decades. I do not contribute
to N.P.R. and am proud that I don't. Subsidizing is not a
virtue.