With the BBC's Connivance, Fledgling Journalists Are Fed The Anti-American Line

On 27 June John Pilger gave his sold-out talk at the Frontline Club, which as I mentioned here was promoted by the BBC's College of Journalism (CoJo).

Pilger began by explaining how and why he first departed Australia's shores, recalling that he left for Europe on the return voyage of one of the passenger ships that, during the immediate postwar decades when "Populate or Perish" was the country's watchword, had brought Italians and Greeks to Australia.

(It's quite true, as he implies in passing, that Australia had hitherto preferred northern Europeans, especially Britons, as immigrants; this antisemitic cartoon, which appeared in 1947 in the Sydney Bulletin, shows Holocaust survivors being welcomed by Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell, apparently depicted as their Pied Piper.)

At the Frontline Club, as seen here,  John Pilger, that legend in each lefty's lifetime, seems to have wowed his audience with his reminiscences, film clips, demonisation of the United States, and advice.

Towards the very end of the video, in response to a question by a young woman regarding Syria, he declares:

"No peace will happen in any of the countries of the Middle East ... until Palestine gets the justice that is due to it, that is the central, almost, the cockpit of Middle East difficulties, problems, injustices and so on ..."

And just afterwards the final questioner, novelist James Thackara, asks him:

"Can I ask you to say what you really think of America? ... How bad is it? How bad will it get? And can it be contained?"  

This unleashes an amplification of the evening's underlying anti-American theme: condemnation of "rapacious America" and its foreign policy, its influence on the foreign policies of other western powers, and the observation that he feels lucky not to have been "blown to bits" owing to nuclear America's stance during the Cold War... 

Thus, with CoJo's connivance, are fledgling journalists indoctrinated.

Unabashedly Plugging Pilger: The BBC flaunts its bias

"[E]xiled and despairing" is how the BBC website described the Palestinians in the caption to one of the cartoons in a slideshow in this set, and that value judgment informs most of the British national broadcaster's output relating to the Arab-Israeli dispute.

Indeed, despite a (rare) rap over the knuckles from the BBC Trust for bias on the part of its Middle East editor (who remained defiant) in 2009, the BBC, with honorable exceptions among its reporting team,  has carried on regardless.

After all, like the senior BBC figure (author of a book on the PLO) who wrote this article decrying the Trust's verdict, the present head of the Trust has a background of overt partisanship with the Palestinian cause.

Al Beeb's leftist anti-Western mindset (of the type identified by David Pryce-Jones, whom I've quoted in the preceding post), which informs its view of the Palestinians vis-à-vis Israel, and of the world in general, pervades the BBC's College of Journalism (CoJo), which is (to quote its website)

"part of the BBC Academy, oversees training for the BBC’s entire editorial staff.

This website focuses on best practice in core editorial skills, and offers an overview of specialist areas as well as legal and ethical issues.

It is a site about BBC journalism for BBC journalists, but is available to everyone."

On the CoJo website there are earnest, self-righteous, and self-indulgent sections on a number of themes, all for the edification of novice or intending journalists.  A sturdy leftist strand dominates, and is evident in the accordance of guest posts (guest posters are a privileged group indeed, for most of the posts appear to come in-house, and there appear to be none that reflect a rightwing perspective).

There's a curious spin on the subject of impartiality (which by the terms of its Charter and Producers' Guidelines the BBC is obligated to manifest but palpably does not).  In fact the section is risible, indeed seemingly delusional, since the BBC does not present all sides of all issues, and effectively censors developments that do not fit its leftist, politically correct agenda by omitting to report them (certain race hate crimes are a notable case in point):

'Impartiality is one of the hallmarks of the BBC’s journalism.... 

Impartiality is also a matter of trust.

Impartiality is not the same as objectivity or balance or neutrality, although it contains elements of all three. Nor is it the same as simply being fair – although it is unlikely you will be impartial without being fair-minded. At its simplest it means not taking sides.

Impartiality is about providing a breadth of view....

Impartiality is about enabling the national debate – assuring that people, over time or the course of a debate, will hear all significant opinions and have access to the information they need to make an informed choice....

Audiences turn to the BBC to help them to make sense of events through disinterested analysis and by hearing a range of relevant facts, views and opinions....

 Reporting around the world

Being an impartial witness to events does not mean being mealy mouthed about them. Due impartiality does not require absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from fundamental democratic values....

Some stories, such as with wars or election campaigns, unfold over weeks or months. It’s the responsibility of the editor in charge of a particular section of output to ensure that over time all significant and relevant voices have been heard. '

The BBC's political bias is clearly discernible in  the cosy relationship it enjoys with the journalistic Frontline Club, which is well left of centre, a fact that shows in the topics it presents for discussion, and the discussants it selects.  See here for its past events concerning Israel: they are in content and personnel notably pro-Palestinian.  In fact, many appear to demonise Israel in the way that Amnesty International does.

As I've remarked before:

"BBC employees have been judges on journalistic awards given out by Amnesty International (a controversial organisation these days, and certainly one not particularly enamoured of Israel).  Even if the BBC employees concerned have the best of motives, in my view this involvement is not in keeping with impartiality."

And BBC employees, such as Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, appear as guests of the Frontline Club.

Later this month, John Pilger will be addressing the Club on the topic "Reflections".  But the Club is not his sole host.  Its website reports of the fully-booked event:

"In association with BBC College of Journalism

Renowned investigative journalist, author and documentary film-maker John Pilger will be joining us in conversation with broadcaster, journalist and writer Charles Glass to look back on half a century of reporting from around the world....."

Pilger's longstanding hostility towards Israel is notorious.  This is the man who, for instance, declared in an execrable piece in the Daily Mirror a couple of years ago:

"Is Israel now a rogue state? ....

 Like so much of the language that journalists use about Israel, ever frightened of being called anti-Semitic, “rogue” is soft. Israel is a criminal state."

The Frontline Club can invite Pilger, or whoever else it pleases.

But that the BBC is sponsoring a talk by such a demoniser of Israel, so partisan an individual, is reprehensible.

That the BBC gets away with such conduct is more reprehensible still.

At Al Beeb's CoJo: Fisking 101

Robert Fisk of The Independent would appear to be everything the BBC could require in one of its own reporters, given his splenetic hostility to the United States and to Israel.

Back in 2006 he was an honoured castaway on the BBC's "Desert Island Discs" programme, giving freely of his opinions on the Middle East, including Israel, to presenter Kirsty Young.

Mr Fisk, however, seems to have upset Al Beeb recently, if the presence of a piece by Stuart Hughes, one of Al Beeb's World Affairs producers, on the BBC College of Journalism (CoJo) website is any indication:

'Few journalists polarise opinion as sharply as Robert Fisk of The Independent.

For more than three decades, Fisk's impassioned writing on Middle Eastern affairs, and his sustained criticism of Israel and the United States, has won him many awards and many more critics.

Conservative commentators in particular have long dissected and rebutted his articles line by line - to the extent that "fisking" has become a term in its own right, defined as "the practice of savaging an argument and scattering the tattered remnants to the four corners of the internet."

Last weekend, Fisk ... was in typically combative form. Instead of attacking Western foreign policy, however, he turned his ire (not for the first time) on another of his favoured targets - his fellow foreign correspondents....

The article - published just over a week after the deaths in Homs of Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik - provoked a furious response. Many senior and well-respected journalists voiced anger at what they regarded as Fisk's disrespectful, out-dated and even dangerous views.

"Fisk correctly identifies there are plenty in our profession with an over-healthy appreciation of their own ego," the BBC correspondent Gabriel Gatehouse told me in an email from Libya.

"He should know, for Fisk is one of the most egregious practitioners of this kind of journalism," Gatehouse added archly.'

Read the entire piece here and make of  it what you will.

Should you have the time and inclination to linger longer at CoJo, have a look at what it teaches about "Impartiality" - something that Al Beeb practises more in the breach than in the observance, of course.

The Reprehensible Propagandistic Hypocrisy of the BBC

If anything illustrates the sheer leftist audacity of the arrogant licence-payer-funded propaganda machine that is the BBC it is the revelation that Al Beeb has been in talks with anti-monarchists in Britain and will allow their cause maximum publicity ahead of this month's Royal Wedding.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-wedding/8440029/BBC-bows-to-republican-pressure-ahead-of-Royal-wedding.html 

That the national broadcaster should behave in this manner might seem incredible, but the move, which illustrates clearly its links to the political Left, was foreshadowed some years ago when Al Beeb presenters were instructed from on high no longer to refer to Wales as "The Principality" - which is precisely what legally and constitutionally Wales happens to be - on the grounds that such a definition is offensive to republicans!

It was foreshadowed more recently by Al Beeb's College of Journalism (CoJo) hosting a blog on its website by a leader of the republican movement in the UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/02/bbc-royal-wedding-coverage-mus.shtml

Surely - with this as a precedent - it's about time that the BBC bowed to "Zionist" pressure and released the Balen Report on its Middle East coverage for public scrutiny.  That, of course, is the report that Al Beeb has spent a huge amount of licence-payers' money on in hiring top lawyers to ensure via the highest court in the land that the report  (paid for with public funds) never reaches the public domain.

And surely - again citing this surrender to republicans as a precedent - it's about time that a leader of the Zionist Federation in the UK was given a guest post on Al Beeb's CoJo site in order to argue for fair representation of the Israeli position on the BBC instead of the scandalous bias that occurs day after day after day.

What Next for Egypt? (video)

Brought to you by the BBC College of Journalism (CoJo), and including a discussion of the influence of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the impact on Israel:

None So Blind As Those Who Won't See

Courtesy: Edgar Davidson blog (see text)

The BBC (you know by now how much I love Al Beeb, don’t you?!) has kept shtum about all sorts of developments in the Middle East that suggest that not all within the protest movement is sweetness and light.

On its execrably left-leaning CoJo (College of Journalism) website – which I advise all concerned about Al Beeb’s anti-Western, anti-Israel bias to keep an eye on regularly – it carries, for example, a piece by a suitably tame Israeli about the brutal attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan by a Muslim mob in Cairo, a piece which omits the rather salient fact that the mob yelled “Jew! Jew!” and focuses instead on the “ugly media reactions” in the West that display male chauvinism towards working women in conflict zones and Islamophobia.

Here’s a snippet:

‘Debbie Schlussel, the ultra-conservative columnist and commentator, claimed in her blog:

"Lara Logan was among the chief cheerleaders of this 'revolution' by animals. Now she knows what Islamic revolution is really all about."

She added:

"So sad, too bad, Lara. No-one told her to go there. She knew the risks. And she should have known what Islam is all about. Now she knows ... How fitting that Lara Logan was 'liberated' by Muslims in Liberation Square while she was gushing over the other part of the 'liberation'."

For Al Beeb that kind of talk won’t do at all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/02/february-11th-the-day-egypts.shtml

Courtesy: Edgar Davidson blog (see text)

Nor will any hint of antisemitism among the protesters – as captured in the composite photos I've reproduced here – they were put together by Edgar Davidson and I took the liberty of copying them from recent posts on his admirable blog (http://www.edgar1981.blogspot.com/)

And, as I’ve said more than once, neither will any suggestion that the Muslim Brotherhood, is in fact (despite the blatherings of Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen and his acolytes) a dangerous Jihadist organisation.

All of which brings me to Professor Barry Rubin’s post on his blog entitled “Muslim Brotherhood's New Campaign: Seize Control of Egypt's Islamic Institutions”.

 He writes:

 ‘MEMRI has pointed out the opening of a Muslim Brotherhood campaign to replace Egypt's current clerical hierarchy with its own people. If that happens...you can imagine.. Once Islamists are in place making the "official" decisions on what constitutes proper Islam, an Islamist state cannot be far away.

.... Knowing that control over Islam was vital to maintaining control of the country, the Egyptian regime (like nationalist regimes elsewhere) set out to build a systematic structure for doing so. The head of the al-Azhar Islamic university, the chief qadi, the clerics of different mosques, are government-appointed. Sermons are government-approved. A ministry in charge of awqaf (religious foundations) and religion supervises all of this and hands out the money. And the government also decides which clerics appear on television and radio, or even have their own programs.

Over the last decade or so, the "official" clerics have been radicalized, and they support terrorism against Israel. Yet there is still a huge gap between those who accepted the rule by Mubarak's regime and those who demand an Islamist regime. They hate the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood hates them.

Now, if all of these official clerics are declared to be corrupt instruments of the old regime and are thrown out of office, the Brotherhood will control "Islam" in Egypt. Equally important, they will control a vast amount of patronage and money. Every cleric will have to get along with them or be unemployed. They could authorize which mosques could open. They would control religious education.

If the Brotherhood is a participant in government, even as a junior member of a coalition, its highest priority will be the religious affairs ministry. To call this dangerous is an understatement.

So we should watch carefully this battle over who governs Islam in Egypt.

To save you a click, here is what Muhammad Zoghbi of the Brotherhood says:

"Al-Azhar was subjected to...the politicization of the positions of the sheikh of Al-Azhar and the mufti of Egypt, as well as the position of the minister of religious endowments. These positions must be filled through elections. By no means should these officials be appointed by the president....

Therefore I say to the 'sons' of Al-Azhar: Let us all join the campaign, led by Sheik Khaled Al-Gindi, until we liberate Al-Azhar, just like Egypt was liberated....The president of Egypt must be subordinate to Al-Azhar and respect it....

Therefore, I say to the sheikh of Al-Azhar...resign immediately.... The mufti and the minister of religious endowments should step down, leaving their positions to God-fearing imams...."

"God-fearing" imams means Muslim Brotherhood cadre. The president of Egypt "must be subordinate" to al-Azhar means an Islamist state. This strategy also suggests that the Brotherhood is recognizing that it will not choose Egypt's next president – who is more likely to be the nationalist Amr Moussa – so it must start building an independent base of support outside of the government's and president's control for its long march toward Islamism at a later date.'

Barry Rubin, in another post entitled “The Turkish Camouflage Model: Arab Radicals Learn How to Hide Your Islamism,” draws attention to a pertinent passage from Newsweek magazine (http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/an-islamist-makeover.html)

“As revolutions across the Mideast bring religious parties within sight of real political power, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is becoming the region’s go-to man for Islamist leaders looking for a makeover.”

Adds the professor:

“In other words, be an Islamist but pretend you aren't. The fact that Erdogan is an ally of Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah is not a good sign for those who follow what might be better called the Turkish Camouflage-Your-Extremism Model.”

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/muslim-brotherhoods-new-campaign-seize.html
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/03/turkish-camouflage-model-arab-radicals.html

In a “Mindset” Lustily – Al Beeb and “Inconvenient Truths”

“How do we put the war between the Jews and the Arabs into context? It takes far too long and with shorthand we risk leaving something out, so we don’t bother. And that’s what causes problems.” The writer is former BBC journalist Bernie Choudhury, suddenly raising that subject in a blog of his that’s been reposted for the benefit of students  – or should I say liberal left-propagandists-in-training?  – at Al Beeb’s College of Journalism (CoJo) headed “Inconvenient Truths”.

The main thrust of the blog concerns what Mr Choudhury considers an out-of-context report in The Times which showed that of 86 men convicted of grooming young British girls for sex, 83 were Muslims. What context he wants – whether he’d like to see more slanted truths from Al Beeb’s very own Jeremy Bowen – such as Jezza’s prejudice-flawed documentary “The Birth of Israel” http://honestreporting.com/the-bbcs-birthday-present-to-israel-2/  (the one that earned Jezza a ticking off from the BBC Trust, over which Jezza remains sore and defiant: "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” http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/10/jeremy-bowen-attacks-bbc-trust), is not enlarged upon.

It’s interesting, incidentally, that Mr Choudhury mentions that when, some years ago, he “reported on racial divisions in Oldham and how mainly Pakistani young men were trying to create no-go zones for white people,” he “was condemned by some BBC colleagues for playing into the hands of the BNP – and called other names too – even though in every conversation I put in the caveats that it was a minority and possible bravado.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/journalism/blog/2011/01/inconvenient-truths.shtml

Rather underlines what Peter Sissons recently revealed in the Daily Mail – that Al Beeb has a built-in liberal-leftie “mindset” – doesn’t it?

I thought of the “mindset” so well-delineated by Mr Sissons , and the BBC’s reliance for news analysis on the Guardian newpaper that he confirmed, when – as soon as Al Grauniad announced it was posting the “Palestine Papers” Al Beeb was slavering over Al Grauniad’s Middle East editor, Ian Black, for all the dirt.  (Al Beeb and Al Grauniad hand-in-glove?  You betcha!)

And in his BBC blog (25 January) on what the "Palestine Papers" reveal about the "refugee" issue, another of Al Beeb’s correspondents, Mark Urban, chose to quote Al Grauniad’s Jonathan Freedland regarding the Israeli government: "they didn't know how to take 'yes' for an answer".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/

The “mindset” is apparent in a blog (24 January) by BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight presenter Robin Lustig (pictured) suggesting how we might view the leaked “Palestine Papers”. That’s the same Radio 4, incidentally, which as that fine website Biased BBC has very recently demonstrated, shows in its religious programming a marked and quite outrageous preference for Muslim issues and for Muslim participants over any other creed or set of believers.

Anyway, Mr Lustig, on his BBC blog of 24 January (Sissons criticised this blogging mania on the part of Al Beeb’s staff, since it intrudes partisan commentary into what should be strictly objective reportage) he itemises ways in which we might view the “Palestine Papers” :

‘1. The Negotiators as Traitors: what right did the Palestinian negotiators have to offer so much to Israel in return for so little? Nearly all of east Jerusalem? Joint control of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, the third holiest place in Islam? No right to defend their own territory with their own armed forces? No right of return for Palestinian refugees? That's not negotiating ... that's surrendering.

2. The Negotiators as Statesmen: Look how far they were prepared to go. Look at the painful concessions they were prepared to make. How can the Israelis claim they have no "partner" to negotiate with when these papers show the exact opposite to be the case? How can anyone argue now that it's the Palestinians who are being unreasonable?

3. The Negotiations as Charade: Doesn't this just prove what a waste of time this whole so-called "peace process" is? Who do these negotiators represent, other than themselves? If their Fatah party were to be tested in elections, they'd be wiped out - and they know it. Besides, they don't even control the Gaza Strip, so nothing they supposedly "offer" will matter a damn. In any case, they still don't get it. Israel will give up not an inch of Jerusalem, and will never agree to anything that might threaten its existence.’

Well, there’s a fourth option that evidently didn’t penetrate the “mindset” that seems intent on exerting mind control – the option so well articulated by another Robin, the admirable Mr Shepherd, whose stalwart defence of Israel cost him his job at Chatham House:

‘Game over. No way back. An entire edifice of anti-Israeli demonisation definitively consigned to the scrap heap, never to be recycled again. This is the uncompromising message that comes out of yesterday’s revelations on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. To the horror of a European political intelligentsia which has been steadfast to the point of fanatical in its opposition to Israeli “settlements” in east Jerusalem, the Palestinian leadership itself, we now know, has long accepted that the vast majority of Israeli settlements can be considered legitimate and would become part of Israel under any reasonable peace agreement.

This is utterly devastating since it simultaneously shows that everyone from the British Foreign Office and the BBC to the European Commission and the continent’s passionately anti-Israeli NGO community have been adopting a position which was significantly more uncompromising on “settlements” than the Palestinian leadership itself, and also that that same Palestinian leadership had accepted that the so called 1967 “borders” – the gold standard for practically every anti-Israeli polemic around – are irrelevant to the prospects of a lasting peace….

Privately and morally, senior Palestinians can see that there is nothing illegitimate or even especially problematic about most of the “settlements”, (as reasonable observers of the MidEast have been saying for years). This we know from the leaks themselves. But publicly and politically they cannot sell such concessions to their own people. This we know because they are currently trying to distance themselves from the leaks, and because they educate their own people in an implacable rejectionism which extends to the “moderate” Palestinian authority glorifying suicide bombers and other terrorists by naming streets and squares after them.

Logically and reasonably, the Israeli response is to see such “concessions” for what they are: well intentioned in so far as they go, but impossible to implement in practice. Quite apart from the question of Hamas-run Gaza, the Palestinians have been playing the same old game of saying one thing to one audience and something else to another. They are not a credible partner for peace, and the Israelis do not look remotely “churlish” for understanding this.

It will be interesting to see how this whole affair now plays out. But never again can the anti-Israel community play the settlement card and at the same time retain a single ounce of credibility.'

Robin Shepherd blasts the Guardian in this whole Palileaks affair as being “more hardline against Israel than the Palestinian leadership itself” and reminds us that the Palestinian Authority’s leader, Mahmoud Abbas, has denied the Holocaust. “The only conceivable way out of this for the anti-Israel community,” Shepherd goes on,

“ is to turn this all upside down and argue – as analysts, reporters (anyone they can get their hands on) have been doing on the BBC all day –  that what this really shows is the extent of Israeli “intransigence”: the Palestinians offer all these concessions, and still the Israelis say no! This was the line adopted by Paul Danahar, the BBC’s MidEast bureau chief, who quite casually averred that, “The Israelis look churlish for turning down major concessions”.’

http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/british-foreign-office-bbc-european-liberal-left-devastated-by-leaked-revelations-on-israeli-settlements-guardian-furious-at-%e2%80%9cweak%e2%80%9d-and-%e2%80%9ccraven%e2%80%9d-palestinian-leadersh/#more-3716

What a Difference a Jane Makes - to BBC balance on the Middle East

Regular readers of this blog (it feels good to use that phrase, and I cherish the hope there are a few!) will realise that the BBC is hardly my favourite broadcaster.  While acknowledging that there are many things the BBC does extremely well – after all, it should, since unlike its commercial rivals it has a huge enforced remuneration from licence-payers to finance its efforts – I loathe the BBC's leftist bias for many reasons: its obligation to be impartial, its antipathy towards British traditions, towards Judeo-Christian values, towards western interests, and towards Israel.

Not for a moment do I believe that all Al Beeb's employees share in such antipathy, but it is undoubtedly that ethos which dominates; it can be seen in all its ignominy on the BBC News website, which is run (if a photo that they once posted of themselves is any guide) by 20- and 30- somethings – a fact which I believe informs their view of Israel, for having been born well after 1967, they are imbued with the widespread narrative that Israel is a colonial oppressor and thus help to spread that narrative themselves. 

And let there be no mistaking the fact that Al Beeb has a leftist bias; some of its own presenters and executives have admitted as much.  Thus, Andrew Marr : "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people.” And Ben Stephenson: "We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking." (hat tip: Biased BBC)

So it was with trepidation that I switched on BBC One's Panorama last evening, to see "Death in the Med", an account of the Mavi Marmara affair presented by Jane Corbin.  Now, I haven't always been unequivocally admiring of her reportage (although, praise providence, she is no Jeremy Bowen), but here she got the tone and coverage absolutely correct.  She'd been given unprecedented access to the elite commando unit which raided the Mavi Marmara, and her reportage – in terms of style, airtime, and content – was meticulously fair to both sides.   I was pleased to see that she included intemperate words from the flotilla leader in her report, as well as an excerpt from a video clip of a participant on board, who said that he was fully prepared to die as a shahid (martyr), and footage of iron bars being fashioned out of fittings on board and Israelis being savagely beaten.  I do not believe that partisans of the Palestinian cause have any grounds for complaint either.  So thank you, Ms Corbin, for an exceptional piece of BBC journalism. 

Sometimes, in BBC reports from the Middle East, it's not so much what they say as the way they say it which betrays their bias against Israel.  As well as being a master of the snide remark, the oh-so-world-weary Jeremy Bowen is well-practised in the sneering vocal tone, in the eyebrow sardonically raised.  Jane Corbin had none of that.  Nor did she use the well-tried BBC device of giving the Israeli viewpoint last or begrudgingly, as in the "Israel says ..." which typically ends BBC reports after the Palestinian position has been highlighted.

I've taken a close look at the website of the BBC College of Journalism (CoJo), which is billed as “a smart way for the BBC to decide whether journalists are suitable – before the vacancies arise”.  I was alarmed by its assertion that "Impartiality is not the same as objectivity, neutrality or balance", but reassured by the excellent training video on that subject by well-known presenter Evan Davis.

Less reassuring is the fact that CoJo has linked to a video interview for the Frontline Club ("Championing Independent Journalism") given by Al Beeb's Jezza to CoJo head Vin Ray.   There's Bowen, proclaiming (yet again) that, following complaints from supporters of Israel, the BBC Trust was "wrong" in  finding him guilty of three inaccuracies and one breach of impartiality in his online article "How 1967 defined the Middle East" and of one inaccuracy in his From Our Own Correspondent report. There he is, adding "It doesn't really worry me" (and we all know that the Trust's rebuke has scarcely made Jezza break his anti-Israel stride).  There he is, admitting that "my emotions are very skin deep" and that "Of course I empathised enormously with the people there [Gaza] - who couldn't?" and describing Gaza as "a big prison camp". And there he is, regretting that he appeared during Cast Lead to be "pulling a few punches" and blaming that on the fact he and other foreign journalists had been prevented from reporting from there by the Israelis. "Had I got into Gaza I would have been much more powerful".  As for (sssssssh, you know who, "I know what they're going to be worked up about", Jezza tells the audience, so he tries "deliberately to spike their guns".

In an interview published in the Independent (11 December 2006) Bowen declared: "It's certainly the case that many Israelis and... many people in the British Jewish community regard us as, if not anti-Israel actively, then certainly pro-Palestinian. Some regard us as being actively anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic. ... The difficulty of reporting from the Middle East is that what people really want ... is for you to come down on their side."

Not so.  What people - we, the hard-pressed licence-payers – really want is for the BBC to abide by the terms of its Charter and its Producers' Guidelines.  We want the BBC to exhibit impartiality, to give both sides to a dispute an equal airing, and to display a non-judgmental style in its broadcasts (I suggest Bowen looks at Evan Davis's CoJo video for tips on what this entails).  Jane Corbin managed these things admirably in her Panorama report last evening.  Why, then, is impartiality beyond Bowen and his cohorts?