Balen Report

The Balen Report is a 20,000 word document written by the senior broadcasting journalist Malcolm Balen in 2004 after examining thousands of hours of the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The report was commissioned by former BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook, following persistent complaints from the public and the Israeli government of allegations of anti-Israel bias.[1][2][3] It is a legal obligation for the Corporation to be impartial which is why this Report is so important. Eventually one year later Helen Boaden, Head of BBC News admitted this was "an editorial misjudgment".

Freedom of Information court case

A number of people requested copies of the report under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The BBC rejected these requests on the grounds that the report fell under a derogation in the FOI Act: "Information held by the BBC is subject to the Freedom of Information Act only if it is 'held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature'."[4] The BBC contended that as an internal report aimed at checking its own standards of journalism, the report was held for purposes of journalism.[4] The BBC's position was challenged by Jewish activist,[5] and consultant commercial solicitor at London firm Forsters,[6] Steven Sugar, who appealed initially to the Information Commissioner (who ruled in favour of the BBC) and then to the Information Tribunal (who ruled that the report was not held for purposes of journalism).[4]

The BBC appealed against the decision of the Information Tribunal to the High Court on two grounds: that the Information Tribunal did not have jurisdiction to hear an appeal from the Information Commissioner in this case and that even if did its decision was flawed as a matter of law. The High Court decided that the Tribunal did lack jurisdiction and rejected Mr Sugar's challenge to the Commissioner's decision. The High Court did not consider the BBC's second ground of appeal. Mr Sugar's appeal to the Court of Appeal against the High Court's decision on the jurisdiction question was dismissed but his subsequent appeal to the House of Lords (then the highest court in the UK) was allowed by 3 votes to 2 on 11 February 2009. Thus the Tribunal's decision in Mr Sugar's favour was reinstated.[7][8] The BBC retained its second ground of appeal and the case returned to the High Court on 2 October 2009, when Mr Justice Irwin ruled in the BBC's favour. His decision was that the information requested was held 'significantly' for the purposes of journalism and therefore was exempt under the Freedom of Information Act.[9][10] On 23 June 2010, at the Court of Appeal the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, Lord Justice Moses and Lord Justice Munby upheld that decision and rejected Mr Sugar's appeal.

After Mr Sugar's death, an appeal by his widow was heard at the Supreme Court on 23 November 2011.[11] On 15 February 2012 the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed the appeal. All but one judge dismissed it on the basis that, even if information is held only partly for the purposes of journalism, art or literature, as it was in this case, it is outside the scope of FOIA. Lord Wilson would have dismissed it on the basis that, if information is held predominantly for the purposes of journalism, art or literature, it is outside the scope of FOIA and that the Balen Report was held predominantly for those purposes [12]

The Daily Mail and others have reported that the BBC may have spent up to an estimated £200,000 in an effort to withhold the report, and noted that some BBC chiefs have been accused of wasting licence fee payers' money. Conservative MP David Davis called the block "shameful hypocrisy" in light of the corporation's previous extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism.[1]

In August 2012, the politics website, The Commentator reported a Freedom of Information request they had made which indicated that the BBC has spent £330,000 in legal costs. This figure does not include BBC in-house legal staff time or Value Added Tax.[13]

The BBC's press release following the High Court judgment included the following statement:

"The BBC's action in this case had nothing to do with the fact that the Balen report was about the Middle East – the same approach would have been taken whatever area of news output was covered."[13]

The claimant, Mr Sugar, was reported after his earlier success in the House of Lords in BBC v Sugar[14] as saying:

"It is sad that the BBC felt it necessary to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money fighting for three years to try to load the system against those requesting information from it. I am very pleased that the House of Lords has ruled that such obvious unfairness is not the result of the Act."[15]

However, the High Court then ruled that the BBC was not required to disclose the Balen Report, and in spite of appeals by Mr Sugar and, after his death, his wife, both the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court agreed with that ruling, thus clarifying the law applying to any similar reports in the future.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "BBC pays £200,000 to 'cover up report on anti-Israel bias'". Mail Online. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  2. ↑ "Balen Report FOI battle goes to House of Lords". Pressgazette.co.uk. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  3. ↑ BBC fights to suppress internal report into allegations of bias against Israel The Independent, 28 March 2007
  4. 1 2 3 Archived January 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20080525120108/http://www.ejpress.org/article/13214. Archived from the original on May 25, 2008. Retrieved June 16, 2008. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  6. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120219212541/http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/lawyer-in-the-news/steven-sugar-takes-freedom-information-house-lords. Archived from the original on February 19, 2012. Retrieved June 16, 2008. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  7. ↑ "Lords rule Balen report was wrongly blocked under FoI". Pressgazette.co.uk. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  8. ↑ Afua Hirsch. "Timeline: The battle to make BBC publish Balen report into Middle East conflict coverage". the Guardian. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  9. ↑ Leigh Holmwood. "BBC wins legal battle over report on Middle East coverage". the Guardian. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑
  12. ↑
  13. 1 2 Simon Rocker "BBC spent £330,000 suppressing Balen report", The Jewish Chronicle, 30 August 2012
  14. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20090731120439/http://www.lawreports.co.uk/WLRD/2009/HLPC/Feb0.3.html. Archived from the original on July 31, 2009. Retrieved June 16, 2008. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  15. ↑ Afua Hirsch. "Lawyer hails Lords BBC Middle East report ruling as a victory". the Guardian. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
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