Balen Report

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The Balen Report is an internal document written by the British Broadcasting Corporation's senior editorial adviser Malcolm Balen in 2004 examining the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The report was commissioned by former BBC Director of News, Richard Sambrook.

The BBC took action through the courts to prevent the report from being released, maintaining it is held for purposes of journalism and, therefore, outside the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. The Information Commissioner ruled in favour of the BBC, allowing that it may withhold that which concerns the production of its art, entertainment and journalism. The decision was challenged at an Information Tribunal when a London solicitor, Steven Sugar, requested that the information be released under the Freedom of Information Act. The Tribunal ruled that the report should be released. The BBC appealed against this decision and in the High Court on 27 April 2007 Mr Justice Davis rejected Steven Sugar's challenge to the Information Commissioner's decision. On 25 January 2008, the Court of Appeal upheld this ruling.

The Daily Mail reported that the BBC may have paid £200,000 to withhold the report, and accused it of wasting licence fee payers' money. Conservative MP David Davis called the block "shameful hypocrisy" in light of the corporation's previous extensive use of FOI requests in its journalism.^[1]

The BBC's press release following the High Court judgement included the following statement:

"The BBC's action in this case had nothing to do with the fact that the Balen report was about the Middle East – the same approach would have been taken whatever area of news output was covered."