Jeremy Bowen dismisses report that says BBC ‘breached guidelines 1,500 times’ over Israel-Hamas war

Broadcaster’s international editor calls findings as a ‘deeply flawed document’

Jeremy Bowen has dismissed a report that found the BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times at the height of the Israel-Hamas war.
The BBC’s international editor labelled the Asserson report a “deeply flawed document” after it concluded the corporation’s coverage was deeply biased against Israel.
The research, which analysed four months of output, accused Bowen of excusing Hamas terror activities and comparing Israel to Putin’s Russia.
But during a BBC Masterclass event on “reporting war impartially” on Friday, the 64-year-old took issue with its findings.
In a recording obtained by The Telegraph, Bowen said: “[It’s] a deeply flawed document, in my opinion.
“The Asserson report is a report that has been put together essentially saying we are anti-Semitic, isn’t that right?”
David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy and standards, could then be heard correcting him, saying: “It’s basically saying we’re biased against Israel.
“This is going through the BBC’s complaints process at the moment, so we’re probably best not to say anything about it.”
Bowen replied: “What I say, it’s about the truth. We’re in the truth business. If we cannot tell the truth, something has gone very badly wrong and we have failed in our objectives.
“So I will always try to tell the truth, but sometimes the truth is complicated… It’s not ‘on the one hand’, and ‘on the other hand’, and the truth lies somewhere in between.
“No, actually it’s sometimes the truth lies on that hand, and you have to say it, and I think that searching for some kind of spurious balance is entirely wrong.”
Greg Smith, the Tory MP for Buckingham, accused Mr Bowen of an “outrageous response”.
“When in a hole, stop digging,” he said. “But the BBC seem to have brought the excavator in and are making the matter a whole lot worse.”
It comes as MPs are set to pressure the BBC over an internal report on anti-Israel bias that has been “suppressed” for almost two decades.
The culture, media and sport committee is expected to raise the issue with the broadcaster when Parliament returns next month amid mounting criticism of its Middle Eastern coverage.
The Asserson report, which was led by Trevor Asserson, a British lawyer, has prompted fresh calls for the BBC to publish a separate internal inquiry, known as the Balen Report.
Ordered in 2004 following repeated complaints of bias by the Israeli government, it was carried out by Malcolm Balen, a senior journalist.
It has since been suppressed, with the corporation going to court to keep its findings secret.
Lord Polak, the honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel, branded the decision to withhold the report “an example of mistrust”.
The Conservative peer, who has previously called for the findings to be published, told The Telegraph: “Everything these days is about transparency and freedom of information. What is it that they’re hiding in it?
“Don’t be mysterious. By being mysterious, it allows people to form their own conclusions. If they want to just explain things, let us know what is it they may be hiding.”
Gary Mond, the chairman of the National Jewish Assembly, added: “It is highly unfortunate that the findings of the Balen Report, produced in 2004, have never been published in the 20 years that have elapsed since. This has begged the question that the BBC is trying to hide something.
“Whatever those findings were, I do think that the BBC, as a provider of a major public service, has a responsibility to share the report and its conclusions with everyone. The National Jewish Assembly therefore calls for this to happen.”
Lord Austin, a crossbench peer, said: “The findings of the Asserson Report are only the latest evidence of the BBC’s longstanding and deep-lying bias in its coverage of Israel.
“Jeremy Bowen seems unable to acknowledge these editorial failings. If director-general Tim Davie is serious in his pledge to consider a deep systematic review of the BBC’s Middle East coverage, Mr Bowen’s deeply concerning track record should be right at the top of the agenda.”
The BBC has said its internal inquiry was commissioned “for the purposes of journalism” and so falls outside the scope of Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.
Danny Cohen, a former BBC executive, last week warned there was an “institutional crisis” at the national broadcaster and called for an independent inquiry into its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
Two leading Jewish groups, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly, added their voices to demands for a review.
The BBC last week strongly rejected claims in the Asserson report that its staff “celebrated acts of terror”.
It said in a statement: “We strongly reject the attack on individual members of BBC staff, all of whom are working to the same editorial guidelines.”
The corporation also raised “serious questions” about the methodology of the report, which used artificial intelligence to analyse nine million words of its coverage.
Stressing it was required to achieve “due impartiality”, the BBC said that this was already being achieved by its correspondents in lieu of the “balance of sympathy” the report wanted.
A BBC spokesman said: “We have serious questions about the methodology of this report, particularly its heavy reliance on AI to analyse impartiality, and its interpretation of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.
“We don’t think coverage can be assessed solely by counting particular words divorced from context. We are required to achieve due impartiality, rather than the ‘balance of sympathy’ proposed in the report, and we believe our knowledgeable and dedicated correspondents are achieving this, despite the highly complex, challenging and polarising nature of the conflict.
“However, we will consider the report carefully and respond directly to the authors once we have had time to study it in detail.
“The most recent research shows that audiences are significantly more likely to turn to the BBC for impartial coverage than to any other provider. Independent research from More in Common found that the highest proportion of people thought BBC coverage of this story was mostly neutral.”