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Jeremy Bowen

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Jeremy Francis John Bowen (born 6 February, 1960, in Cardiff) is a Welsh journalist and television presenter. He was the BBC's Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem between 1995 and 2000,[1] and has been its Middle East Editor since 2005.[2]

Contents

Background

Bowen was educated at Cardiff High School, University College London (BA History) and the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. His father Gareth reported the 1966 Aberfan coal slurry disaster for the BBC, and became editor of news at Radio Wales.[3]

Career

He joined the BBC in 1984 and has been a war correspondent for much of his career, starting with El Salvador in 1989.[4] He has reported from more than 70 different countries,[2] predominantly in the Middle East and in the Balkans. He reported from Bosnia-Herzegovina during the civil war there, and from Kosovo during the 1999 conflict, during which he was robbed at gunpoint by bandits.[5]

Bowen has been under fire on assignment a number of times. In what he was later to describe as the pivotal moment of his life, a colleague and friend was killed on 23 May 2000 in Lebanon.[3] This took place while Bowen was covering the IDF's pullout from Lebanon: Bowen's car came under tank fire and his "fixer" and driver was killed.[6] Bowen and his cameraman escaped, but Bowen suffered post traumatic stress disorder amd retreated from the frontline, moving to work in the studio as a presenter,[3] hosting the daily news and entertainment morning show Breakfast with Sophie Raworth between 2000 and 2002. He was also a guest host on the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You, and presented the BBC's 2001 three-part series Son of God, an investigation into the life of Jesus.[7]

Given the chance to cover the 2003 invasion of Iraq from Baghdad, a city he knew well, he turned it down.[3] Nonetheless, Bowen subsequently returned to the field in March 2003, as Special Correspondent,[8] during which time he covered the death of Pope John Paul II. He became the BBC's first Middle East Editor when the position was created in June 2005 after the 2004 Balen Report on the BBC's coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict[9] to provide a broader perspective on wider Middle East issues[10] and to add context to the reporting of events on the ground.[11]

On 11 May, 2008, Bowen and his camera operator again came under fire in Mount Lebanon. Nobody was injured and the incident was caught on camera.[12]

Editorial Standards Committee report

On 3 March 2009, the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust reported at length (118 pages) on three complaints brought against two news items involving Bowen.[13] The complaints included 24 allegations of innaccuracy or impartiality of which three were fully or partially upheld.[14] The items were a 2007 BBC News Online article, "How 1967 defined the Middle East"[15] and an episode of "From Our Own Correspondent" broadcast on 12 January 2008.[16] Parts of the article were found to breach BBC guidelines on accuracy and impartiality (in The Guardian's words, "Bowen should have used clearer language and been more precise in some aspects of the piece"[17]) and one statement in the broadcast was found to breach BBC guidelines on accuracy,[16] although the committee accepted that Bowen had an authoritative source for the disputed claim.[17] Bowen himself has not commented, but BBC News has said that "the Trust's conclusion was a single, partially upheld finding related to one piece of output about events that took place over 40 years ago" and that "Jeremy Bowen was simply exercising his professional judgement on history."[18] The original website article has been amended and Bowen will not face any disciplinary measures.[2]

The report received widespread coverage in the UK and in Israel, with headlines such as "Complaints of BBC bias partially upheld" (The Jerusalem Post), although the report does not accuse Bowen of bias.[14] CAMERA, one of the two complainants, said that they were concerned that the committee did not call on Bowen to be objective in future articles.[19] The other complainant, Jonathan Turner (a barrister and member of the Zionist Federation), stated that "The finding that the article on the Six Day War lacked impartiality is particularly important. Jeremy Bowen has written a book about this subject. If he can't get this right it's difficult to see what he can get right in relation to Israel and the Middle East. I think he should go, I think his position is untenable."[20] The Chairman of the BBC Trust, Michael Lyons, said that the report "was not a judgement on his role and responsibilities as Middle East Editor, for which he rightly has a high reputation and has received widespread respect."[21]

Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk has been particularly critical of the ESC report, calling it "pusillanimous, cowardly, outrageous, factually wrong and ethically dishonest," and saying that the BBC Trust is "now a mouthpiece for the Israeli lobby".[22] An editorial in The Independent said that the report demonstrated "a terrible absence of good judgement", and declared that "Mr Bowen's work has always been scrupulously unbiased."[23] The Guardian's Peter Wilby noted that Bowen has also been accused of anti-Palestinian bias, and remarked that "To my mind, this shows the hopelessness of attempts at impartial reporting in the Middle East. "Fair" reporting for one side is lies and distortions for the other."[24]

Interests

He is a supporter of Cardiff City Football Club.[25]

Awards

  • New York Television Festival 1995 - Best News Correspondent
  • RTS Best Breaking News Report 1996 - Best Breaking News report, for his coverage of the assassination of Israel's President Yitzhak Rabin
  • Sony Gold award for News Story of the Year on the arrest of Saddam Hussein
  • part of the BBC teams that won a BAFTA for their Kosovo coverage.
  • International Emmy 2006 for BBC News', for its coverage, led by Bowen, of the 2006 Lebanon War[5]

References

  1. ^ The Guardian, 17 June 2005, Bowen named BBC Middle East editor
  2. ^ a b c The Independent, 16 April 2009, Bowen 'breached rules on impartiality'
  3. ^ a b c d The Independent, 11 December 2006, Jeremy Bowen: The man in the middle,.
  4. ^ Jeremy Bowen, The Guardian, 14 June 2004, Now we're the target
  5. ^ a b BBC Press Office, Jeremy Bowen, last updated September 2008
  6. ^ BBC says unprovoked Israeli fire killed an employee in Lebanon.Retrieved 22 March, 2009
  7. ^ Son of God. IMDb. Retrieved 12 May, 2008.
  8. ^ On This Day: Jeremy Bowen.
  9. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/11/bbc-middle-east-report-balen BBC report on Middle East conflict coverage
  10. ^ BBC, 12 July 2005, Jeremy Bowen
  11. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/news/jeremybowen.shtml
  12. ^ BBC reporter under fire in Lebanon. BBC. Updated 12 May, 2008. Retrieved 12 May, 2008.
  13. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/appeals/esc_bulletins/2009/mar.pdf BBC Trust - Editorial appeals findings 03 March, PDF
  14. ^ a b Antony Lerman, The Guardian, 16 April 2009, What did Jeremy Bowen do wrong?
  15. ^ BBC News Online, 4 June 2007, How 1967 defined the Middle East
  16. ^ a b BBC Trust Editorial Standards Committee 03 March 2009
  17. ^ a b BBC Trust partly upholds Jeremy Bowen complaints
  18. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8000922.stm
  19. ^ CAMERA, 15 April 2009, CAMERA Press Release on Key BBC Ruling Against Mideast Editor Jeremy Bowen
  20. ^ http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/national/c-11628/calls-for-bowen-to-lose-job/ Calls For Bowen To Lose Job
  21. ^ Michael Lyons, The Independent, 17 April 2009, Michael Lyons: We have a duty to uphold impartiality
  22. ^ Robert Fisk, The Independent, 16 April 2009, Robert Fisk: How can you trust the cowardly BBC?
  23. ^ The Independent, 16 April 2009, Leading article: Bad judgement
  24. ^ Peter Wilby, The Guardian, 30 March 2009, When evil is a question of bias
  25. ^ Edworthy, Sarah. "Jeremy Bowen: I'm so happy when England lose at rugby". Telegraph.co.uk. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/wales/2352736/Jeremy-Bowen-Im-so-happy-when-England-lose-at-rugby.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-17. 

Bibliography

  • Jeremy Bowen, Six Days - How the 1967 war shaped the Middle East (2003). ISBN 074344969X (pbk). History.
  • Jeremy Bowen, War Stories (2006). ISBN 0743230949 (hbk); ISBN 0743449681 (pbk). Autobiography.

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bowen"
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