The appointment of Jeremy Bowen as Middle East editor in response to complaints about the BBC’s coverage of Israel has, in HonestReporting’s view, become a significant part of the problem and not the solution. Unsurprisingly we are not going to add our own congratulations to Bowen who received the second Charles Wheeler Award for achievements in broadcast journalism. That this was the British Journalism Review’s annual award perhaps says much about the attitudes of many in the UK journalist community.
At the awards ceremony, Bowen referred to his censure by the BBC Trust following two separate complaints. In the first, the BBC deemed a website article “Six days that changed the Middle East,” about the Six Day War, to be inaccurate or lacking impartiality. In the second complaint, a broadcast delivered on BBC Radio 4 in January 2008, in which Bowen said the US government considered the Israeli town of Har Homa on the outskirts of Jerusalem as illegal, the BBC Trust ruled the report had partially breached accuracy guidelines:
As Middle East editor for the BBC, I’m under pressure from lobbyists. I am recognised by my peers as also being able to stick to my guns.
Last year the BBC Trust, wrongly in my view, found me guilty of some inaccuracies, because of [complaints from] a campaign group in the USA, and in this country, who are the enemies of impartiality. They got through to the BBC Trust. I was found guilty.
So, not only is Bowen unable to accept criticism or the rulings of the BBC Trust, but he prefers to believe that watchdog organisations or concerned citizens – the “enemies of impartiality” – are responsible for his difficulties. Does Bowen really buy into this canard or does he believe that he is beyond accountability?
We make no apologies for holding Jeremy Bowen and the BBC to account for biased reporting on Israel. Sorry Jeremy but the only accolade you’ll be getting from us in the future is a nomination for our Dishonest Reporter of the Year award.
