1 IMPARTIALITY REVIEW OF THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT 1. TERMS OF REFERENCE “To assess the impartiality of BBC news and current affairs coverage of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict with particular regard to accuracy, fairness, context, balance and bias, actual or perceived.” 2. SCOPE News and current affairs only – selected television, radio and online output. 3. RESEARCH Two research projects were commissioned for this review, one covering content analysis, the other audience research. a. Content Analysis Research Analysis of content research was put out to tender to institutions with proven track records of media research. The Communications Research Centre at Loughborough University was selected to carry out this research. Content analysis began in September 2005 and was part retrospective and part prospective. News output was analysed from August 2005 to January 2006 and current affairs from January 2005 to January 2006. The following outlets were considered: NEWS BBC TV BBC One Six O’Clock News BBC One Ten O’Clock News BBC Two Newsnight News 24 20.00 –21.00 weekdays, 20.00 – 20.30 weekends BBC Radio Radio 4 Today Radio 4 1800 Bulletin Radio Five Live Drive BBC Online bbc.co.uk/news Others Sky News 2100 ITV Evening News 22.30 Channel Four News 2 CURRENT AFFAIRS BBC television and radio current affairs programmes were also analysed. b. Audience Research Audience research was also put out to tender to market research organisations. Opinion Leader Research was selected to carry out this work. Audience attitudes and perceptions were assessed through focus groups and a telephone survey carried out in the Autumn of 2005. 4. INDEPENDENT PANEL Sir Quentin Thomas (Chair) President of the British Board of Film Classification and formerly Political Director in the Northern Ireland Office. He left the Civil Service at the end of 1999 after a career in the Home Office, Northern Ireland Office and Cabinet Office. Lord Eames Archbishop of Armagh and Anglican Primate of all Ireland. Lord Eames is involved in reconciliation work in Northern Ireland and throughout the Anglican Communion. Stewart Purvis CBE Professor of Television Journalism, City University London; former Chief Executive and Editor-in-Chief of Independent Television News. Stewart Purvis is a member of the BBC Governors’ World Service and Global News Consultative Group and an adviser to Channel Four on the renegotiation of its news supply contract with ITN. Neither of these roles involved any influence on or responsibility for the content of any TV news broadcasts inside the UK during this period. Philip Stephens Associate Editor of the Financial Times and a senior commentator. He joined the newspaper in 1983 and has been the FT’s Economics Editor, Political Editor and the Editor of the UK edition. He is an author and broadcaster. Before joining the FT he was a correspondent for Reuters in London and Brussels. He is the author of Politics and the Pound (MacMillan), and of Tony Blair (Viking/Politico’s), a biography of the Prime Minister. He is a Fulbright Fellow and winner of the 2002 David Watt Prize for outstanding political journalism. Dr Elizabeth Vallance Chair of the Council of the Institute of Education, University of London, a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and a non-executive director of Aviva plc, the international insurance company. Dr Vallance began her career as an academic teaching political philosophy at London University where she was head of the Department of Politics at Queen Mary College, subsequently a Visiting Professor and now a Fellow. She was chair of the Department of Health Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence Awards from 2000 to 2004, is the author of numerous books and articles and is a magistrate on the Inner London Bench. 3 5. WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS The Independent Panel invited the public to write in to express their views. They also invited written submissions from the following organisations: Al Quds Anglo-Israel Association Arab Media Watch BICOM, (British Israel Communications & Research Centre) Board of Deputies of British Jews British-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group CAABU (Council for Arab-British Understanding) Conservative Friends of Israel Israeli Embassy Jewish Chronicle Labour Friends of Israel League of Arab States (London) Muslim Council of Great Britain Office of the Chief Rabbi Palestinian General Delegate to the UK The following organisations submitted evidence: Al Quds Anglicans for Israel Anglo-Israel Association Arab Media Watch BICOM, (British Israel Communications & Research Centre) Board of Deputies of British Jews British-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group CAABU (Council for Arab-British Understanding) Conservative Friends of Israel Dorset Palestinian/Israeli Peace Group Israeli Embassy MPAC UK Muslim Council of Great Britain Office of the Chief Rabbi Palestine Solidarity Campaign Reform Judaism Take a Pen! Zionist Central Council of Greater Manchester Zionist Federation The following gave oral evidence to the Panel: Abdel Bari Atwan, Al Quds Trevor Asserson and Lord Anderson, Anglo-Israel Association Richard Burden MP, British-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group 4 Chris Doyle, CAABU Alan Hart and Tim Llewelyn Prof Greg Philo, Glasgow Media Group, Glasgow University Inayat Bunglawala, Muslim Council of Britain Daniel Shek and Ben Novick, BICOM Henry Grunwald, Jon Benjamin and Jerry Lewis, Board of Deputies of British Jews James Arbuthnot MP, Conservative Friends of Israel Robert Robinson and Diane Langford, Palestine Solidarity Campaign Shuli Davidovich, Gideon Meir and Daniel Taub, Israeli Embassy Zaki Cooper and Rabbi Barry Marcus, Office of the Chief Rabbi Sharif Nashashibi, Arab Media Watch BBC Management and Correspondents Although it was originally intended to publish written submissions alongside the Panel’s report, it was subsequently decided not to publish on legal advice.