BBC releases Balen Report… legal costs

Finally! The BBC has released the Balen Report… uh.. legal costs.

Sorry to get your hopes up. But perhaps with your help, that will be my next blog.

In the meantime, I’d like to draw your attention to the scandal that is the British Broadcasting Corporation’s spending on concealing the Balen Report, which was commissioned in 2004 to analyse it’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Today, over at The Commentator, we released a Freedom of Information response that shows the BBC has spent at least £330,000 hiding the Balen Report from the public. That’s well over half a million dollars.

 The legal costs incurred by the BBC amount to £332,780.47.

A few weeks back, I reported about how the BBC ‘accidently’ left Israel without a capital city on its Olympics coverage. From there it was revealed that they also use provocative images to delegitimize Israel. (Oh and guess what their favourite newspaper is?)

If the BBC wanted to refute these claims, it could simply release the Balen Report and show us all how it is not anti-Israel. Right? Surely if they’re as down the line as they say they are, they have nothing to worry about?

Which begs the question, why in a time when BBC chiefs are claiming they are hard up for cash, are they spending ludicrous amounts of money battling against transparency?

I’m sure you can think of a few reasons.

In the meantime, won’t you join me in telling the BBC precisely what you think of its out of control spending in order to hide a document from the public that pays its bills?

If enough of us complain, perhaps my next blog post will indeed be entitled, “BBC releases Balen Report“. Although I hear that scientists have developed wings for pigs, too.