I doubt we’ll ever find out how the covered-up Balen report assessed the BBC’s Israeli-Palestinian coverage. But the Mortimer report — Edward Mortimer’s assessment of the Beeb’s Arab Spring coverage — could shed some light.
Using the Mortimer report, Simon Plosker takes a stab at what Balen might have said. Plosker concludes in The Commentator:
In this Israel-centric BBC universe, the average BBC consumer is falsely led to believe that Israel is the cause of all instability in the Middle East and the only conflict occurring in the region. While Arab populations suffer behind the cloak of brutal regimes, all incidents in Israel become international news broadcast by the BBC.
We may never know what conclusions Malcolm Balen reached back in 2004. But if the BBC was prepared to publicly release the Mortimer Report, and if that report has found fault with BBC Middle East coverage, then you can bet that Balen found something far worse and more insidious going on.
