The Independent gathers some views on balance and bias, in the context of the BBC's review of its Middle East coverage:
Stuart Cosgrove, director of Nations and Regions, Channel 4
Balance is a very evasive concept and is under substantial threat from new means of communication such as internet blogs, VJ video journalism and the proliferation of new niche channels....Balance is a minefield.
Rod Liddle, former editor of Today
There is a naive consensus among an awful lot of individuals at the BBC which sees the world as a perpetual struggle between the strong and the weak - which always equates to the bad and the good.
David Elstein, former chief executive Channel Five, chairman British Screen Advisory Council
I don't believe the BBC as an institution or its reporters as individuals show bias. However, the coverage suffers from the same shortcomings that characterise so much of modern foreign reporting: response rather than analysis.
Jerry Lewis, London correspondent for Israel Radio
Most Israelis view BBC coverage as biased against them and overtly sympathetic to the Palestinians. After a terrorist incident the BBC inevitably focuses on the likely "revenge" by Israel and then gives greater prominence to Palestinian casualties, omitting to mention that their terrorist groups hide among civilians for protection.
Tim Llewellyn, BBC Middle East correspondent 1975-1992
The BBC does not report the conflict entirely honestly because it is not properly enmeshed with the Palestinian side. What the BBC does not do is go into the West Bank and live there and be there. If it did that, and lived life as a Palestinian Arab lives, then it would experience the daily humiliation of that existence.
Professor Greg Philo, head of Glasgow University Media Group
We undertook a study over three years which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and subjected to peer review by independent academics. It was rated outstanding. It concluded that there were clear absences in coverage of the history, origin and causes of the conflict and that these had profound influences on how the public understand the Palestinian case. In contrast the Israeli case was very well represented.
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