Sugar Appeal
Regular readers of this blog will know about the dispute between Steven Sugar and the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú, over whether Mr Sugar should be allowed to see an internal report on the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's Middle East reporting which has become known as the 'Balen report'.
In the latest instalment of what has become a complex legal battle, the Appeal Court has today backed the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú and rejected Mr Sugar's latest challenge.
It's important to note that this decision is not about the contents of the report itself. Instead it's about the legal issue as to whether the Information Tribunal has the power to overrule the Information Commissioner when the latter has decided that an information request to the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú is outside the scope of the FOI Act because it's about information held for the purposes of journalism. The Appeal Court has agreed with the High Court and the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú that the Tribunal did not have this power.
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The notion that the Balen Report contains information 'held for the purposes of journalism' is b*ll*cks! The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú hasn't been meeting with secret sources to research investigative journalism . It's not about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein getting all cosy with Deep Throat.
I - as an enforced licence tax payer - paid for that damned report, and I damn well want to see it.
Martin,
The Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú can hide behind whatever legal device it wishes to, however it cannot hide from the central truth that the more you (Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú) spend licence fee money on stopping the release of this report the stench of something wrong will continue.
As Max Sceptic rightly points out your argument is rubbish, how the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú dares to have a blog called 'Open Secrets' when it refuses to be open itself beggars belief.
I personaly support a licence fee, however, the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú must be held accountable when it's reporting is found to be open to accusations of bias, after all what was the reason for getting Mr Balen to perform a review if you do not publish the findings?.
Perhaps the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú should take another look at it's own survey in which only 7% of participants felt that they can trust the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú.
Examples of bias which are known are the reporting styles of most of your Middle East reporters with obvious examples such as Barbera Plett and her infamous crying over the death of Arafat.
I imagine that the report advised the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú to strive for a more balanced approach in it's Middle East reporting, however, I doubt very much that it shows a totally clear bias against the Israelis, however by not releasing this report you are allowing the stench of bias to fester and grow.
A quick trawl on the internet brings up over 2 million hits regarding Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú bias, so it is clear that you have a huge problem with your reputation, in fact I found sites dedicated to 'exposing bias at the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú'!.
Indeed on one site it lists all the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú employees who have worked for Labour, the number of these employees is amazing, so for you to not to relase the Balen report seems to reinforce the perception of bias which if you ignore could be the issue that loses the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú it's licence fee as more and more people feel that you are out of touch and untrustworthy.
As I've mentioned on here elsewhere before...
If this legal battle was just about clarifying a technical legal issue, and not about withholding the report (which is something the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú have stressed in the past), now that the legal technicality has been clarified, will the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú choose to release the report anyway?
Call me an old cynic, but I doubt it very much. Always happy to be proved wrong though.
I don't think that "information held for the purposes of journalism" should be outside the FOI. Obviously sources need to be protected, but many other things should not be kept secret.
For example, if the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú had an internal policy of avoiding certain topics or terms I think that is something the public should know.