Balen out ?

Former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn claims to be the first journalist outside the BBC to have read The Balen Report. 

The internal report, written by tv news editor Malcolm Balen in 2004, was commissioned by Director of News Richard Sambrook, to test claims of anti-Israeli bias, by reviewing hours of output across 2003 and the beginning of 2004.  The BBC has always argued it is held under wraps because its exempt from scrutiny as part of Freedom of Information law, and has spent substantially to defend that position in the courts. 

According to Llewellyn, Balen concluded. ”I am conscious that this report has been compiled under a weight of criticism from pro-Israelis and is, in some ways, shaped by it: not because their criticisms are necessarily any more accurate than those from pro-Palestinians, but because they [pro-Israelis] are responsible for the climate of perception which surrounds the BBC’s coverage.” 

And, again according to Llewellyn, Balen “found no evidence of deliberate or systematic bias.”

You can read Tim's full piece here.