It is big news that the BBC has actually upheld some of the complaints against Jeremy Bowen. The way they’ve wriggled and jiggled out of the remainder is an indication of the wider battle we’re faced with.
Whether or not they sack him remains to be seen; it’s just the tip of the inherent bias iceberg really. The tenacity of the complainant Jonathan Turner is remarkable. Anyone else would have lost the will to live long ago.
I doubt that Bowen will be sacked or even moved aside BUT this should give more impetus to the campaign to get the Balen Report published.
I wonder how many standard beeboid replies he got?
perhaps he might like to write and tell us how he finally got the BBC ‘Not TRUSTable’ to nail Bowen?
The BBC Trust is an inadequate way of dealing with people like Bowen. By far the best way would be to make the BBC a subscription service so those who want Bowen’s biased reporting, Celebrity Cash in the Attic and other BBC product can buy it, leaving the rest of us alone.
How much do we pay the BBC Trust to come up with evasive reports like the one on Bowen and other BBC issues? The pretence that the Trust is really an independent judge of the BBC is laughable.
As David says, the BBC Trust’s handling of this complaint shows what a flat-footed, impotent, stupid monster was created by the alleged “reform” of BBC governance.
Reading the report is like pulling one’s own teeth; and their exoneration of Bowen on numerous of the contested points also shows that they are like theologians arguing how many angels can be found on the head of a pin. In almost every case, they give the benefit of the doubt to Bowen and the craven BBC management.
More sickening still, the complaint against Bowen himself was thrown out on a technicality – because the complaintant took too long to respond. This is monstrous. The BBC Trust has a staff of 65 to deal with such complaints, while this was a sole complainant assembling (necessaarily)highly complex evidence. Judging him out of time in this way showed yet again that the Trust will strain all its sinews to support BBC staff.
Nonetheless, this is an important ruling, and it is humiliating to Bowen and the news management, who assembled all their big guns (and hair-splitting techniques) to defend it.
Nothing will happen. At best, Bowen will get a little vacation. At worst, he’ll get moved to another Middle East post, with reduced reporting on Israel.
It’s not like he’s going to end up with Carol Thatcher. What she did was far, far worse than any of Bowen’s loose language. After all, if they fire him, it will just prove to everyone that the BBC has finally caved in to the Jewish Lobby.
If Thatcher remains frozen out of the BBC, and Bowen remains in place or merely shifted sideways, you’ll know where the BBC’s true priorities lie.
RH wrote, “In almost every case, they give the benefit of the doubt to Bowen and the craven BBC management”
Too true.
Protecting their own is a strategy endemic in most public sector establishments; shifting blame, or sometimes offering the odd morsel of regret is a feature often seen whenever things go wrong. NuLabour, a Local Council, an MP, the list of regrets goes on when the “regret” expressed is regret at being caught!
Bowen will no doubt blame his editors for not protecting him and he will continue the same line of prejudice and inaccuracy.
For the BBC, this response to the complaints is highly ironic given the way the BBC attack the Police for exhibiting similar self-protecting white-washes.
Telegraph’:
“BBC’s Jeremy Bowen breached guidelines on accuracy in Israel reports”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/5158689/BBCs-Jeremy-Bowen-breached-guidelines-on-accuracy-in-Israel-reports.html
As Martin suggest, general thread here 1:38 pm, Bowen will not resign, and the like-minded BBC in its dhimmitude will not demand he does so (privately, at the BBC it will be ‘Well done Jeremy’); no doubt, Al Jazeera English, with studios in London, might seem quite attractive to him for the next political step on his pro-Islam campaign, as it has to so many Beeboids ideologically, but ex-Beeboid, and Muslim Rageh Omaar has got a top job there.
I had not heard of Avi Shlaim before, but it’s no surprise that the BBC would use someone regarded as a revisionist historian as one of its arbitrating experts.
“The advisor had also consulted with mainstream historian Martin Gilbert and revisionist historian Avi Shlaim, who both agreed that aspects of Bowen’s piece were not accurate.”
http://camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=12&x_article=1655
It’s interesting to see that newspaper reports so far seem to be concentrating on the complaints that have been upheld, rather than the ones that haven’t.
The BBC isn’t very popular just now it seems. Bowen may have to ride off into the sunset after all.
David Preiser (USA):
Bowen will wear this as a badge of honour and his colleagues will nudge and wink him to hero status.
Why hasn’t Bowen and his dhimmi Beeboids converted to Islam , if they think it is so great ?
Surely not feet in both camps and hedging their bets …..
This is really great news. Even though the BBC doesn’t have the integrity to kick Bowen out, he will have to lie low for a while and moderate his bias. He’s now being watched more closely than ever before and he knows it.
For some reason the pdf file from the link comes out too small to read on my computer.
I opened the other version of the doc, but it wasn’t exactly an attractive or appealing doc either, so I haven’t read it yet.
Sue 8:08 pm
AVI SHLAIM:
-the undemocratic BBC know how to pick ’em:
From ‘Wikipedia’
“He is a regular contributor to The Guardian newspaper, and signed an open letter to the Guardian condemning Operation Cast Lead on 16 January 2009.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Shlaim
George R
Good find.
I have been out all day. I suppose I ought to force myself to read the Trust’s drivel ?
Jeremy Bowen eh….. think this moonbat’s goin to be peddlin propaganda for Al Jazeera soon or getting sent to pakistan by beeboid bosses to take care of plett
Bowen “criticised” – the BBC fightback starts here. Doesn’t look like Bowen is even going to be given a holiday. After all he was only exercising his right to interpret history. So that’s alright then.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8000922.stm
The downside to this (there had to be one, didn’t there?) is that the BBC and its fanatical apologists will use this limp-wristed condemnation as ‘proof’ that the BBC’s complaints procedure is effective and, therefore, that everything is fine at the Corporation.
The fact that a front man for radical Islam is allowed to act as the main man reporting on Middle East affairs indicates the extent of the BBC’s crimes against the Jewish people.
A few weeks ago, a poster pointed out a recent article by Obersturmfuerher Bowen that put forward similar anti Israel propaganda. I appear to have lost the link. Was it in the Evening Standard?
I’d appreciate your help as I want to use it to make a formal complaint. I hope others will do the same.
Thanks!
John Bosworth | 15.04.09 – 8:11 pm |
Bowen will wear this as a badge of honour and his colleagues will nudge and wink him to hero status.
You’re probably right. Kudos for standing up to the Jewish Lobby, eh? After all, I seem to recall somebody at the BBC saying they needed to work to counteract the Israeli propaganda machine.
Ricky 9:30
The institutionally anti-semitic BBC , at least, need to remove anti-semites like Bowen, from reporting from Israel. More importantly, the Israeli government need to kick him out.
My overall view anyway was that Bowen’s highly biased view of, and book on the Six Day War has been at the ROOT of all his reporting. It has informed his entire approach to Israel and the “Palestinians”.
So if he has always been biased AT ROOT on the Middle East conflicts, all the excusing away of the other points in the BBC Trust report does not add up to a row of beans. They can give him the benefit of the doubt as much as they like, but he is and always has been wrong on the fundamental issue from which most of the history of the past decades has developed.
Is this an unfair view of Bowen, too sweeping, too simplistic ? Or is the central issue that really nails him and has always nailed him ? The issue that made his appointment as Middle East Editor wrong from Day 1 ?
JohnA 10:09
Not simplistic. Sums it up perfectly.
Why did the anti-semitic BBC appoint a known anti-semite like Bowen to that post ?
Rhetorical question, I know !
JohnA | 15.04.09 – 10:09 pm |
The BBC has no problem with their presenters “reporting” on issues in which they have a personal connection or stake.
For example, Justin Webb reports on embryonic-stem cell research legal issues in the US. He even brings it up when he interviews people and challenges them on it.
Justin Webb has a child with Type-1 Diabetes, and embryonic stem cell research was one path to a possible treatment. George Bush shut down government funding for that particular type of stem cell research, directing funds to other kinds. So Webb has a personal stake in the issue.
Not only does he continue to report on the issue, but he does so from his personal perspective as someone with a personal investment.
Robert Peston is Gordon Brown’s biographer. He continually reports on Mr. Brown’s economic plans and schemes.
Both Webb and Peston have declared their personal interest on air. This means that, according to BBC editorial policy, now that they have made the disclaimer, they can continue to go on reporting freely.
There’s no reason to assume that this ends with them.
There was a time I thought I’d like to construct a family tree of Beeboids..the sons, daughters, uncles and aunts, biographers and mentors…they haunt the corridors of BH and TVC.
If Bowen is shuffled sideways he will be replaced by Katya “Bowen is my mentor” Adler. Taking bets now.
John 10:08
A family tree of Beeboids would just be incestous monkeys !
If Bowen actually could report unbiased facts the Israelis would just have him shot instead of trumping up fake complaints about what little he can get out.
Joe;
Bollocks alert bollocks alert!! (Flashing strobes and sirens)
Do a post on Julia Bradbury please.
Just read the bbc report on her, then went elsewhere and discovered the truth.
Brilliant bbc bias.
“The way they’ve wriggled and jiggled out of the remainder is an indication of the wider battle we’re faced with.”
Yes, that dratted battle with someone whose knowledge, experience and ability to string a sentence together trumps anything a Biased BBC writer can muster.
Let’s just all celebrate the partially upheld components as if we agree 100% with the BBC Trust, but as soon as they say “on these points, Bowen was justified,” berate them!
How dare they throw up examples of how simplistic Biased BBC writers’ black-and-white viewpoints are! Doesn’t everyone know that we should fall at the feet of people like Sue and David Vance and say, “yes, we know that you don’t really have any practical knowledge, but god bless you for never letting your own ignorance getting in the way of a strongly-held opinion”!
You know, Scott, for someone who considers himself qualified to pass comment on others’ abilities to ‘string a sentence together’ – you write like a chimp.
Stick to the shilling would be my advice. Lit crit really isn’t your forte.
GCooper
I read Scott’s piece, what was he saying ?
“Yes, that dratted battle with someone whose knowledge, experience and ability to string a sentence together trumps anything a Biased BBC writer can muster.”
Scott | Homepage | 16.04.09 – 1:35 am
In fact, there are plenty people on this site who write better than Bowen. His style is clumsy and stilted. Even if he were not a vile, Israel-bashing obsessive, reading him would still be an unpleasant experience.
Millie Tant | 15.04.09 – 8:42 pm,
Dunno, I opened a couple of files, but they had the same tiny type. Guess I’ll brace myself and go to that rdiculous old dinosaur of a complaints website and look there.
The BBC found within its report on Bowen (page 10):
I hope that the BBC keeps this in mind when describing the number of votes that the BNP polls in June.
Worthy of note that the Indy seems to think this front page stuff:
Bowen ‘breached rules on impartiality’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/bowen-breached-rules-on-impartiality-1669278.html
However, I was intrigued by this subhead:
‘..former director-general says top journalists should not be undermined’
…as in being picked up on being ‘top’ more at getting facts either wrong or changing them to suit their personal emerging truth, enhanced narrative or interpreted event and flying in the face of any definition of professional, objective reporting?
“Jeremy has got a very difficult job to do in very difficult circumstances and this does not make it any easier.”
Making the life of a propagandist in the guise of a national broadcaster’s senior editor is not really something I want encouraged, frankly.
… if most of his journalism was put under that degree of scrutiny, then it wouldn’t stand up. I think we all know that to be true.”
Why wouldn’t it ‘stand up’ if it was good journalism. Truth, well told, and all that? As with Smeargate, the MSM and its news ‘stars’ and apologists seem to be trying defend their version of truth against one most of us recognise, which are facts and balanced commentary supported by well-researched and unsubstantiated support materials.
Not what ‘they’ ‘think’ in a twisted personal version of ‘context’.
For me it’s sod all to do with Israel, pro or con, but simple judgement on what our national broadcaster views as a smart call on who represents their brand in a specific area of expertise.
A bit like getting a near Somalian relative of a recently deceased Capt’n Omar Sparrow to take over as the BBC’s Washington correspondent.
There was me thinking that the he had been caught fair and square on this one, but the ‘Independent’ sees it completely differently:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-how-can-you-trust-the-cowardly-bbc-1669281.html
and
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-bad-judgement-1669307.html
Robert Fisk:
“The trust • how I love that word which so dishonours everything about the BBC • has collapsed, in the most shameful way, against the usual Israeli lobbyists who have claimed • against all the facts • that Bowen was wrong to tell the truth.”
Words fail me……..
The lying basket nailed at last Unfortunately the BBC is full of his sort who will be allowed to continue with the Religion of Peace propaganda and their hatred of the West.
Robert Fiske needn’t worry – Jeremy Bowen is back today proudly reporting for Toady. No doubt the Trusts’ ruling is going to be worn as a badge of honour. Not that Pravda is broadcasting the ruling of course (just a slapdown on its website). So what exactly is the point of the complaints procedure?
Dunno, I opened a couple of files, but they had the same tiny type.
Bryan | 16.04.09 – 8:00 am
PDF files have a zoom facility. View->Zoom->Actual size (100%)
‘Times’
“Jeremy Bowen breached BBC impartiality rules in Middle East coverage”
[Concluding extract]:
“The BBC is currently engaged in a High Court battle to try to stop the release of a similar internal document, The Balen Report, written in 2004 to examine the corporation’s coverage. ”
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6100325.ece
Greg Dyke’s disgraceful defence of Jeremy Bowen in the Indy explains precisely why he was sacked (sorry, “forced to resign”)as a DG, and also why urgent reform of the entire BBC complaints procedure is needed so that it is made entirely independent of the lib-left flunkeys who currently run it.
Greg complains that any journalism would not pass muster if put under this level of scrutiny. What utter rot! The reality is that the complaints procedure is so loaded in favour of BBC management (who always hide behind a battery of time-honed excuses) that the only way to have a hope in hell of a complaint succeeding is to put it under the microscope in this way. Even then, the ESC will resort to every defence they can to rescue BBC staff.
In this case, Bowen was found to be wrong exactly in line with the way that BBC bias so often operates – deep-seated prejudices surfacing in editorial judgments that often sound plausible on the surface, but which are actually linked directly to ideological value judgements and manipulation.
This report is bad news for John Simpson.
The only way for Bowen to go now is up, and Simpson’s lardy arse is occupying the obvious chair to move him to.
I’d give it 4 months, max.
Scott 1:35
Judging by this post, I don’t think we need any lessons from you on how to write english !
“JEREMY BOWEN:
“Fee Guide: £6k – £10k
“Available For: *Presenting,
*Awards Hosting”
http://www.nmplive.co.uk/viewTalent.aspx?TalentID=1176&gclid=CKDbycb89JkCFRAgZwodkz59RQ
“CAMERA Press Release on Key BBC Ruling Against Mideast Editor Jeremy Bowen”
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=4&x_outlet=12&x_article=1655
JohnA | 15.04.09 – 10:09 pm |
Hi, from day 1 the reason for his appointment was precisely *because of his anti-Israel/Semitic bias.
As someone noted, this will be used as a fig leaf by the BBC to pretend its ‘complaints process works’. Personally, I interpret the minimalist nature of the Trust’s findings against Bowen as a message: ‘Please be more careful about your bias in the future, the accountability that still remains in what is left of democracy could still bring the BBC Propaganda Project down’.
For information here is an extract from a letter that will be wending its way to the BBC DG today. An MP sent me the DG’s reply to a letter of complaint he wrote to him concerning the BBC’s treatment of Carol Thatcher:
“A few years ago Tom Paulin went on record advocating genocide against Jewish settlers on the West Bank. Again, this was not necessarily an anti-semitic statement, but the grounds for believing it to be so are obviously far stronger than imputing racism against Carol Thatcher. Tom Paulin’s career at the BBC continued without a blip. He affirmed his comments. Carol Thatcher apologised for hers. Tom Paulin’s comments were public. Carol Thatcher’s were private made under Green Room conventions.”
“Greg complains that any journalism would not pass muster if put under this level of scrutiny.”
Utter bullshit – where the compliants were inspired by the complainant’s own bias these were correctly rejected. The ones that were upheld was when Bowen lapsed into he usual half arsed generalisations and throwaway lines and in doing so exposed his personal blatant pro-Palestinian views which have no place in impartial reporting. Twat.