Q&A on BBC Trust findings on Middle East Editor
On 15 April 2009, the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee released a report which partially upheld complaints against BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen on account of his coverage of Israel. This prompted front-page headlines, editorials and opinion pieces, as well as letters from readers. In spite of the media interest in the story, there was very little discussion of what the complaints process and the resultant report actually consisted of. Here is a summary of the salient points:
Who complained?
There were three separate complaints about two BBC outputs by Jeremy Bowen. London lawyer and Zionist Federation member Jonathan Turner submitted complaints about ‘How 1967 defined the Middle East’ - an article on the BBC News website - and an edition of Radio 4’s ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ from the Har Homa settlement near Jerusalem. Additionally, a separate complaint from CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) analyst Gilead Ini was also submitted in relation to, ‘How 1967 defined the Middle East’.
These complaints were assessed by the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee, the highest adjudicatory body in the BBC, after being repeatedly rejected at lower levels in the organisation.
What were the complaints about?
Altogether, the complainants made 14 allegations relating to the factual accuracy of the two pieces of journalism. These allegations obviously raised questions about the extent to which the BBC had maintained its standards of impartiality. Of these 14 allegations, four were partially or fully upheld.
Which complaints were upheld?
A. ‘How 1967 changed the Middle East,’ by Jeremy Bowen, 4 June 2007
Of the ten allegations of inaccuracy against this article one was fully upheld, while two were partially upheld. A further two were deemed to be issues of impartiality and contributed to an overall finding that the piece breached BBC guidelines on impartiality.
I. ‘Zionism’s innate instinct to push out the frontier’
The criticism that was fully upheld related to a reference made to ‘Zionism’s innate instinct to push out the frontier’, which the Committee felt was ‘unqualified’ and not ‘clear and precise'.
The Committee took into consideration a defence from Jeremy Bowen, in which he argued: ‘The Zionism settlement of Palestine started in Ottoman times with one kibbutz. Had there been no ‘instinct to push out the frontier’ how would Israel have developed into a highly successful nation-state?’
However, on hearing from two historians who contended that Zionism was flexible and noted the distinction between right-wing and other strands of Zionism the committee concluded that the Middle East Editor’s claim had been unqualified and had breached BBC standards of accuracy.
II. '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'
Two aspects of the sentence were questioned. First, whether Israeli generals could be said to be ‘hugely self-confident’; second, whether it was true that the Israeli army had planned to take control of the West Bank and Gaza as is implied.
Expert historians Avi Shlaim and Martin Gilbert were consulted on these issues. On the issue of ‘hugely self-confident’ generals the BBC heard two conflicting views. Gilbert said, 'the two or three Generals I knew were not confident, they were petrified and feared the war going on so long they could not maintain it.' Avi Shlaim, on the other hand, argued that it was 'a generalisation that holds'.
The BBC decided that Jeremy Bowen had been referring specifically to the difference in attitude 'between the native-born generals on the one hand and the older, largely immigrant politicians on the other.' It felt that '[T]he phrase was used as a general description of their characters' and so did not breach accuracy.
On the ‘unfinished business’ point, both expert historians ‘had agreed that this phrase was not accurate.’ Jeremy Bowen submitted a defence which claimed that he was ‘referring specifically to the desire to overturn the Jordanian conquest of the Old City of Jerusalem.’
Martin Gilbert responded that, ‘[I]f he meant the unfinished business was the capture of Jerusalem, then he should have said the capture of 'East Jerusalem''. Avi Shlaim also noted, 'But he doesn’t say Jerusalem’ and said that the phrase was ‘not accurate’ and ‘misleading’.
The BBC decided that Bowen had breached the accuracy guideline on ‘clear and precise language’ and that ‘it would have been impossible for the reader to know what unfinished business the author had meant and that the language here had lacked precision.’
III. ‘in defiance of everyone’s interpretation of international law except its own’
The third complaint, which was partially upheld, was about Jeremy Bowen’s assertion that Israel’s settlement policy in the West Bank was ‘in defiance of everyone’s interpretation of international law except its own’. The committee found ‘everyone’ to be a ‘loose use of language’ that breached the guideline on clear and precise language.
Furthermore, ‘[I]t would have been perfectly possible to have qualified this as “nearly everyone” or the “the vast majority”, and that would have been acceptable.’
Impartiality
In addition to upholding these three complaints about ‘How 1967 changed the Middle East’ the Committee also found the piece to have breached BBC standards on impartiality. This was owing to the fact that Jeremy Bowen had offered only one interpretation of the Six Day War and the events surrounding it, without properly indicating that other interpretations were also possible. The report concluded that ‘the article did not sufficiently signpost that this was one possible theory amongst other possible theories.’
When Jeremy Bowen claimed that he had been using his ‘professional judgment’ about the events of 1967, the Committee responded that, ‘a “professional judgment” on a matter of opinion regarding a highly controversial subject should be contextualised to indicate that other views exist.’
B. ‘From our own correspondent’ by Jeremy Bowen, 12 January 2008
This programme elicited four separate complaints. Three were rejected and one was partially upheld.
IV. ‘It’s considered to be an illegal settlement by most of the world including the United States because it was built on occupied land.’
During the broadcast, which focused on the Har Homa settlement, the Middle East Editor claimed that, ‘[I]t’s considered to be an illegal settlement by most of the world including the United States because it was built on occupied land.' The Committee concluded:
‘there was no evidence that this was official US policy: on the contrary, there is a wealth of documentary evidence that the United States has specifically avoided using the word “illegal” in relation to the settlements.'
On this basis, the complaint of inaccuracy was partially upheld.
What are the implications of the findings?
Once the report was published, the BBC clarified that it would edit the online article to reflect the findings of the report, but that Jeremy Bowen would not face any disciplinary measures. This reflects the fact that most of the charges against the article and the broadcast were not upheld. Where they were upheld, the main concern of the Committee was that language used was not precise enough, rather than that the claims made were false.