In today’s (friday) Telegraph, tree version only, Neil Midgley has an article entitled “BBC’s £1/4m to keep Israel report secret.”
“The BBC spent more than £270,000 on legal fees to keep a report on its coverage of the I/P conflict out of the public eye, it disclosed yesterday. The sum was among nearly £400,000 of spending on outside advice about FOI requests.
The 20,000 word internal document was written in 2004 by Malcolm Balen, a senior journalist. Steven Sugar, a solicitor, asked to see it under the FOI act, and sued when the BBC refused. The case went all the way to the House of Lords. The courts eventually found in favour of the BBC and the report was never published.
In figures released under the FOI, the BBC has now disclosed that it spent £264,711 on barristers’ fees defending the case and £6,156 on other legal advice. […]On the Balen report a BBC spokesman said “If we are not able to pursue our journalism freely and have honest debate and analysis over how we are covering important issues, then our ability to serve the public effectively will be diminished.”Mark Thompson, the D.G. complained last month about the burden of spurious FOI requests. He said questions had included the number of lavatories in Television Centre and the policy on biscuits. However, requests have also elicited less trivial facts, such as information about executive pay.”
About pursuing your journalism freely and having honest debate and serving us effectively. When can you start?
“In figures released under the FOI, the BBC has now disclosed that it spent £264,711 on barristers’ fees defending the case and £6,156 on other legal advice.”
“The sum was among nearly £400,000 of spending on outside advice about FOI requests.”
So over two thirds of ALL the money they spent on outside advice wa sfor a single issue. Over a quarter of a million quid of YOUR money, of my money, of taxpayers money…to hide a report. Vanity and misuse of funds are among a shortlist of things that make stinking and obvious bias all the more grave.
Sue
Whatever gave you the strange notion that they serve us ?
Get it straight. They serve themselves.
We serve them – we the people have to work to pay for the BBC empire and the inflated salaries of panjandrums like Thompson.
If in doubt just lie and keep lying, what the BBC really means is that they know full well they are biased and the evidence completely supports that so they try to keep the bias secret and they use any lie to keep it that way.
All the nastiest traits of fundamentalist scocialism, all the tricks and cynical manipulations for which Marxist socialism has become famous. The ends justiry the means, any dirty trick and cynical ploy is wholly justifed. We see the childish foot stamping and squealing, the spoiled brat complex from the overpaid arrogant chatterati.
Real adults do not behave like little kiddies caught stealing from the cookie jar, I didnt do it they cry even as they wipe the crumbs from their mouths. It wasnt me they trill, a big boy did it and ran away. Why do you hate me they gurgle as they burst into tears while trying to think of the next manipulation to try.
Its all so bloody predictable to anyone who has had to deal with spoiled little brats, little lord Fountleroys the lot of them, waaah waaah waaah!
The only cure is the cold shower of reality, take away their lavish incomes and see how they manage without their nannies and cleaners and private health care and foreign holiday homes.
One look at the real world would cure them.
There must be some pretty damning information in this report for it to be worth a quarter of a million pounds to suppress it. So, I can only assume that it is an indictment of the bbc’s anti-Israel bias.
As a publicly funded body, I am surprised that the law supports the bbc in its secrecy. Has this case set a precedent, I wonder?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Balen Report was as empty of content as Al Capone’s secret vault. Does anyone put it past the BBC to waste £270,000 of public money just because they can?
I’ve re-posted this over at the blog, where I’ve also dug up a copy of the FOI response smoking gun, for your downloading delectation.
The item in question is number 12, ref. CO/7618/2006. Enjoy.
I am surprised no-one has leaked the report. That would be hilarious !
Aaaaah but then it wouldnt be ‘leaked’ it would be ‘stolen’!
On Radio 5 the other day the vile Vicki Pollard was attacking some top female beeboid for “wasting licence fee payers money” defending the BBC’s decision to fight the identification of Ben Collins as the Stig.
At the time I emailed in (as I always do) why the BBC wasted my money on trying to fight the release of the Balen report. I’ve been doing it for years, not once has an email or text been read out.
The whole of the BBC are in cahoots over this.
Every time some beeboid comes on spouting about Government secrecy, we should remind them of the Balen report.
Is Balen still alive and sentient. If so, he should release it. Public subscription will cover him if the BBC dared sue, but I suspect they would not dare increase the public attention.
I don’t think we need the Balen Report to be released at all.
If the Balen Report cleared, or all but cleared, the BBC of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian bias then the BBC would have released the report to show that they were officially not biased against Israel. As the BBC have not released the Balen report then that must be because the report showed that the BBC was biased against Israel…
Perhaps MOSSAD could help?
We know they read B-BBC just as they closely monitor all Jew hate websites/racist media outlets like the BBC so perhaps if some MOSSAD agent is reading this, do us a favour and obtain the report and post it online eh? Shalom & long live Israel 😀 .
Malcolm Balen seems to be lying low. All web references to him dry up around 2004. The BBC is probably holding him in a dungeon. Or perhaps he has been given a new identity.
Just as Palestinian hardship has been lovingly nurtured so that their grievances have become an invaluable tool in furthering the anti-Israel agenda, perhaps the BBC’s extravagantly funded suppression of the Balen report is a more useful tool than the contents of the report could ever be, should they be revealed.
If the report did find bias, it could be argued that that was then and this is now. The BBC would say things have changed, improved, moved on.
If it didn’t find bias, it would just show what a ridiculous waste of money they’d squandered to keep their newsgathering methodologies secret.
Everybody knows they don’t actually gather news, they fashion it to fit pre determined scenarios. Apart from the Robert Piggot set-up where their hand-picked interviewee was transplanted into a strange parish to misrepresent their attitude to the Pope’s visit, we all know, don’t we, something like this tale.
A man got into conversation with a champagne quaffing passenger he was sitting next to on a flight. A war had just broken out in the region from which they were departing. “I’m a BBC news editor” said the tipsy one. “Oh,” said our man, interested. “How come you are travelling away from the action?” “Well,” came the reply.” I’ve set up the crew, told them what I want, now I’m off home.”
As Mr. Punch so wisely says. “That’s the way to do it.”
A war had just broken out in the region from which they were departing. “I’m a BBC news editor” said the tipsy one. “Oh,” said our man, interested. “How come you are travelling away from the action?” “Well,” came the reply.” I’ve set up the crew, told them what I want, now I’m off home.”
===========
That editor had an instinct for self-preservation, if not news. It is dangerous for Beeboids to go anywhere near a war as they don’t know the front end from the back end of a tank or a gun and they can’t tell who is firing and who is being fired at. They are so hopelssly confused between the firing line and the line of fire, that even if they don’t end up dead, their reports make no sense.
Whatever our personal opinions of the BBC, I think we must recognise the comlexity of this case and the legal implications of it. I have just read the Judge’s summary and I can’t find any particular flaw in it.
The flaw, if it is that, which allows the BBC to avoid the request, is purely one of legislative drafting. In the Derogations to the act, there is a widely interpretable structure to exempt materials held ‘for the purpose of journalism’. This is designed to restrict government and individuals ability to deterr impartial or probing journalism by making sources difficult to conceal.
We do not know the content of the Balen report, neither it appears did the information commissioner who felt it unnecessary to read it. This is because he was not called upon to make any judgement on what was held therin. His judgement was that, because of the derogation in the act, the information did not fall under his jurisdiction at all (i.e it was held for the purpose of jounalism), and therefore even though he replied to Mr Sugar’s request, in no way was this a ‘decision’ for the purpose of the act, merely a statement of his lack of jurisdiction. Even under judicial review, the IC was seen to have taken the right steps in reaching this conclusion. (Judicial review does not address points of fact, only of process).
If you take the view that any material which does not directly relate to a current ‘story’ is not jounalistic material, then a potential issue arises for the BBC, in which it may never refer to sources or methodology in any document for the fear that under the FOIA this may be made public. In Middle Eastern, Criminal or N.I. reporting this could potentially put lives in danger. Channels 4 & 5 would ultimately also have been affected by this a they are part publicly funded.
We currently suffer a badly run BBC, biassed and beligerently left wing nd anti Israel. However, in this instance they may have done a service to us in the long run (for whatever motives) in arguing this case, which was also argued from a similar standpoint by the information commissioner.
I remember back when BBC Midlands correspondent David Gregory used to engage with us here, he had his own reason for not wanting the Balen Report to be released.
His argument was that there were lots of personal emails collected and read through as part of the inquiry, and said that it was understandable that nobody would want personal emails released to the public like that. Not that there was anything incriminating to hide about BBC treatment of Israel, but that personal stuff would be revealed along with any internal communications relevant to Israel.
Gregory said that this wasn’t fair at all, nobody would want personal stuff out in the open like that. I wasn’t quick-witted enough at the time to ask if he would accept the report being released with any names blocked out from anything not directly related to the issue.
I wonder if anyone would accept that now?
Yes, that attitude renders the whole FOI act pointless.
You could equate it with the wikileaks incident. Nobody particularly wants to jeopardise individuals or betray informants, but it could be argued that a summary or a redacted version could have been issued.
Why were we allowed to know that this report had been commissioned in the first place if the outcome was likely to be too sensitive for publication?
If it was commissioned because the BBC had received hundreds of complaints and allegations of bias, surely it was pretty obvious that the complainants would want to know the outcome.
The BBC’s legal department could have prepared an acceptable version, keeping certain bits back if necessary, to satisfy the public. It would have saved all those nasty legal fees.
The problem with that solution, while sensible perhaps in the individual case of the Balen report, is that it might not be possible to accurately hide information in other circumstances.
Redact a name, but the information from that source may be revealing enough, and who decides where to redact? The Information Commissioner cannot be involved at that level. Add to that the potential liability for error, and it opens up a very large possibility of legal complexity. Also, other pubic bodies would be subject to such enqiries, which could cause a greater imposition and cost than was desired by the original act.
All public bodies could be subject to any changes made because of this case, because the priciple would be in danger of being applied across purposes other than journalism – i.e. in a wider fashion to the application of the act itself. Judges must be careful to interpret law, not rewrite it, but as with a lot of the legislation of the Labour years, a lack of parliamentary scrutiny has left disjointed and disasterously loose law.
It also adds more fuel to the conspiracy nuts, (who abound in the age of the internet) as they speculate about the facts that have been witheld and you could easily see a situation where no matter how little was redacted and for what reason, therin would lie the smoking gun.
I quite see your point, but by that logic the whole FOI act is unworkable. The Data Protection act adds to the anomaly.
Pity they ever commissioned the Balen report, then, and bigger pity that our prying eyes became aware of its existence.
(Heaven forfend that any pubic bodies should be involved 😀 )
But, Tony, I would say that most conspiracy nuts are on the other side: i.e. they suspect that the BBC is controlled by the Zionist Lobby. So I’m not sure how revealing a redacted report in the manner I suggested would lead to what you think it will.
INBBC, and Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus.
Without irony and apparent knowledge, INBBC report below omits to mention that the latest anti-Israel publicity stunt is a boat sailing from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, to Gaza:
1.) ‘Jihadwatch’:
“Activists” set sail for Gaza from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus
2.) INBBC:
“Jewish activists sail to Gaza in defiance of blockade”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11414973
It will be very interesting how the BBC covers the ‘Jewish’ boat. Up to now it is very quiet. it, of course, provides a link to the organization.
Does anyone know what is the BBC ‘policy’ about links? Is there a ‘red line’ where the BBC won’t provide contact details?