BBC Balen Battle to Continue
August 15, 2011 14:06 by Simon Plosker
We were deeply saddened when UK lawyer Steven Sugar died in January of this year. Sugar had campaigned tirelessly in the courts to force the BBC to publicly release the Balen Report – the corporation’s own investigation into whether it held an anti-Israel bias.
The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money in the courts trying to prevent its publication. However, despite numerous legal setbacks and the death of Sugar, the Daily Telegraph reports that Sugar’s widow has taken upon herself to continue the legal challenge to the BBC:
Mr Sugar lost at the Information Tribunal, the High Court and the Court of Appeal, but his legal team – who have waived their fees – are hopeful of success in the Supreme Court.
Mrs Paveley said: “I used to tease Steven about his obsession with fighting this so I think he would have a wry smile that I’m carrying it on, but I couldn’t let it drop.”
Mr Sugar, a solicitor, first asked the BBC to publish the Balen Report in 2005 under the Freedom of Information Act and refused to accept the BBC’s argument that it was outside the Act’s scope.
The corporation successfully argued in the past that the report should not be released because it was held for “the purposes of journalism, art or literature” and, as such, was exempt. It was commissioned to analyse the BBC’s coverage of Middle East issues and make recommendations for improvement.
Mrs Paveley, a 48-year-old clinical psychologist, was approached by her husband’s lawyers after he died. They explained that the case could only continue if he was represented at court.
“I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to abandon it,” she says. “It would have almost felt like a betrayal to let all his hard work go to waste. He never gave up, so why should I?”
Mrs Paveley said that she and her late husband saw an anti-Israeli bias in the reporting of Orla Guerin, the BBC’s former Middle East correspondent, who was accused of anti-Semitism in 2004 by the Israeli government.
Mrs Paveley said: “Steven thought that reporting should be balanced. As a publicly-funded body, it seems wrong that the BBC is afraid and reluctant to be more transparent.”
HonestReporting has been calling for many years for the BBC to release the Balen Report after our own Freedom of Information request was rejected.
We wish Fiona Paveley every success in the continuation of this important battle.
Steve Mann
3:47 pm
Aug 15, 2011
If Mrs Sugar is reading this site- Then may I add my good wishes and total support in ensuing her late husbands quest.
I have been writing, e-mailing and asking others to follow suit- to the BBC on this very same subject since 2006.
The only one time I received an e-mail response from the BBC when I wrote asking for the Balen report to be published- said in response- “We know you would like it published” ” But the the courts say we do not have to as it is an internal document”.
The BBC journalists cajole the UK politicians to be transparent- the smell of hypocrisy fills my nostrils.
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Balen-Schlacht bei der BBC geht weiter « Medien BackSpin
12:55 am
Aug 16, 2011
[...] HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 15. August 2011 [...]
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Vorhofer Lukas
10:41 pm
Sep 14, 2011
Just a view talking points if I may:There are BBC-journalists who are absolutely ashamed and sadend by it! No proof this time! They need to be engaged in a new unprecedented way with all nessasary means! Amongst other things: Someone should be abel to encouradge them to built a platform, a pressure group of such magnitude which the media in the UK and elsewhere can’t longer easily ignore!
A permanent dialog and engagement-policy with BBC-insiders like Robin Aitken if there ever was one should never come to an end. Unlimited finacial backing for such operations and an unprecedented coordinated fresh effort are a vital component for success. Its a matter of selfrespect of honor of decency of principal and indeed as I see it it is a gift for the wider world!
After all its in the BBC’s own interest one could definitely argue! Based on the outstanding track record to make one uncompromising hard- hitting investigating programme after the other! They did one amazing Panorama-programm which lead to the resignation of their own director general (gregg dyke) They did THE SECREET POLICEMEN, again a BBC-PANORAMA-programm -
they have the intellectual strength and capatathy to do indeed any groundbreaking programme on this planet imaginable, so why should’nt they do another one, a unique programme about different forms of bias unlashing a firework of thoughts and it could trigger a wider debate about bias like never before in Britain And people within Britain and around the world would still remember it – even after years, like the groundbreaking “BLACK AND WHITE MEDIA SHOW” witch dealt with admission after admission of guilt the subject was:direct or indirect forms of raceism within BBC AND INDEPENDENT TELEVISION FACTUAL PROGRAMMES Those are the dreams! “The dreams shall never die JFK” And so what happened to all
those legendary investigative reporters, documentary film makers and producers, TV-critics and researchers and news-presenters who have done together the most magnificent, work?! They don’t need to be reminded about their heritage which they have as a legency behind. Are they all pragmatists, cynics?! Are they all untouched by this?!- The BBC’s elder statesmen some in retirement some not could speak up publicly and declare that it is in the BBC’s own interest to open up a new capture in its long and proud history That it is a matter of public interest and that the citizen of Britain have a right to know! Ironicly unbelivabel selfreflection within their own feedback-programmes was preached for decades almost like a religion! “The death of the BBC” was a titel of a book some years ago, the decline of the BBC, the damage it did to itself by destroying some of its most prestigious legendary programmes, by destroying a unique art form of presentation of taste and decency on television – will unlikely ever be seen again, anywhere around the world. The golden age of BBC television is long dead! But long live the memory! In evolutionary terms it was a hight no other country in the history of world-television will ever be abel to reach again.
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