Panel to scrutinize BBC coverage

I personally watched the BBC news in the living room of my Jerusalem home, and after three airings decided I'd had enough and boycotted the network long before Israel had had enough! Now, more than two years later, the UK is just getting around to having a panel go over the BBC's ultra anti-Israel bias which I understand gets worse and worse with each passing day. Since I am not familiar with the people on the panel who will judge the channel's behavior, I do not know whether to hold out any hope for a fair judgement from them. But really, there ought to be a law about that kind of manipulation of the facts. I would bet the BBC has done more to stir up world bias against Israel and the Jews than Hitler did. For awhile I was afraid they were going to cause an anti-Israel riot in the UK.

Posted by: Debby Mayer at Oct 10, 2005 9:11:03 PM

Great, so after thousands of complaints about BBC bias over the Israel/Palestine conflict, mostly in favour of the Palestinian view, they have finally decided to elect their own panel to judge their impartiality. Seems already fishy that they should pick the people who are going to judge them if whatever outcome is going to be seen to be a fair appraisal. But okay, perhaps they will pick people who have a genuine objectivity and some expertise in the issues involved to make that appraisal.
So who do they pick?

Sir Quentin Thomas (chair) President of the British Board of Film Classification
Lord Eames Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland
Stewart Purvis Former editor-in-chief and chief executive of ITN; professor of television journalism, City University
Philip Stephens Associate editor and columnist, Financial Times
Elizabeth Vallance Former head Department of Politics, Queen Mary College, University of London; member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life; author; magistrate

Not being familiar with any of these names previously, I decided to research something about them that would show why the BBC had chosen them. Seeing what links they might have had previously to Middle Eastern affairs or the BBC.
First Quentin Thomas, and I find this:

Consider the huge success of the licence fee-funded BBC
in which he has this to say about the BBC

"....Online which extends the value licence fee payers derive from BBC programmes and services. During the past year, usage grew at double the rate of the UK market as a whole and, by the end of 1999, more than a quarter of UK Internet users were visiting BBC Online every month.
The Eclipse site in July drew over 3 million page impressions in 48 hours. And page impressions of BBC News Online increased from 50 million in April 99 to 77 million in March of this year.
Public service Internet sites are increasingly becoming the way people obtain their core information.
Online technology also presents the opportunity to turn all of us into questionin interactive participants in the news process. Non linear broadcasting will also certainly become a reality - where we can all be editors, digging ‘vertically’ through news stories to find the research and analysis we need, rather than simply consuming news and current affairs as ‘horizontal’ narratives. Imagine a nation full of Jeremy Paxmans! But think of how important the public service role models will be to ensure we are equipped to ask the right questions. Increasingly we are coming to realise that in the digital on-line world it is not so much the provision of information that matters, but the interpretation that is provided alongside it.

Naturally he see nothing wrong with the BBC providing that 'interpretation'. He'd probably like them to interpret for me why they have selected him for this panel instead of the impression I already have.

Lord Eames is one of the heads of the Anglican Church, the same organisation that has been busy recently implementing sanctions against Israel, one can guess where his sympathies lie.

Stewart Purvis actually started working for the BBC before ITN, and following the Hutton report and the departure of Greg Dyke, left no doubt how he felt BBC coverage had been maligned in this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3444227.stm
Moist-eyed appreciation of Greg

To know Philip Stephens' views on Israel one has only to see this article by him which was posted on an Islamic website.
http://www.salaam.co.uk/news/displaynews.php?news_id=227120
Sharon and Arafat are locked in a lethal embrace

Regarding Dr. Elizabeth Vallance, other than being married to a Lib Dem peer, which may be significant, I can find little to show why she was picked. It might be that she is the most 'indpendant' of the others, but being outnumbered 4 to 1, it won't make a lot of difference to the outcome.

The audacity of the BBC in presenting this as an independent panel to judge their bias seems to know no bounds.

Posted by: Teddy Bear at Oct 10, 2005 9:51:38 PM

I watched the first of this 3 part documentary, and found it very fair. Arafat was prtrayed as a spoilt child who storms off when he doesn't get his own way, and that was all from staments from his own people. saeb erekat( his top advisor ) did not show arafat in a good way at all. From my vieiwing of it I think it was excellent and hope the other 2 episodes are as balanced.

Posted by: Tim at Oct 11, 2005 9:31:45 AM

Tim, I can understand that you felt this programme was fair, but have you considered how much your own understanding and knowledge of Israeli/Arab history filled in the gaps to make it appear so.
Otherwise, your understanding of events there must already be coloured to make it appear fair.
For example, there was no background to the events that led up to the 1967 war, that caused Israel to take the Golan Heights, and were reluctant to give them up.
No history to for any viewer to understand how Jerusalem was originally meant by the UN to have been shared by all faiths, but the Arabs sought to keep the Jews out. So it was 'occupied territory' by Arabs before Jews.
No clear explanation of why the Temple Mount was so important to Jews. No mention that the claim to the Al Aqsa mosque as being one of the holiest sites of Muslims has no link to any reference in their Koran, neither has Jerusalam. The Muslims decided to put it on top og the Temple Mount precisely because it was the holiest Jewish site, then claimed Mohammed saw it in a dream.
They also did not make clear the purpose of Sharons' 'walk' that supposedly led up to the intifada, was cleared in advance with the Palestinians, but was used as the excuse to launch the intifada, which they had been planning for some time. Without this understanding, no viewer could really see how Arafats' demands were so unacceptable to Israel.
Try to see this programme again from the perspective of what somebody who did not know the events there would understand, then you might question its fairness and balance.

Posted by: Teddy Bear at Oct 12, 2005 12:08:45 AM