Bowen Bares

Well, a first-hand account by Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's Middle East Editor, of how he deals with the challenge of 'objectivity'.

As Middle East editor of the BBC, he holds a position of such importance that people from all over the world look to him for an understanding of the course of international affairs.

A recent Daily Telegraph comment piece claimed he was "a thwarted thesp ... [who] whiles away the year in Middle East war zones...

Bowen is more concerned about the opinions of the millions of BBC viewers, and users of its website, who turn to him for his interpretation of the shifts in the sand that affect the most vexing question of our times, the Middle East. He admits there is room for improvement here, and cites the continuing bafflement of viewers as a sign that there is a "perceived and quite serious flaw in our coverage".

"The Middle East is one of those areas where most people don't have any kind of hinterland. Even if they are well-informed people who take their news-watching responsibilities seriously, it's actually quite hard for people to understand. The BBC is the biggest broadcaster in the world and to be the BBC person whose role it is, more than anybody else's, to try to explain the most complex and newsworthy place in the world is a hell of a big job, really."

Not only must he demystify the Middle East, but he must do so in language that does not, through an inappropriate phrase or image, inflame suspicions that the BBC is biased. Bowen, who is a contributor to the BBC's new College of Journalism, is honest enough to say that objectivity is beyond him. "We all come from somewhere; we all have a prism through which we see the world; we all have an education, and views and experiences. It's a false objective to be objective.

"But I think I can be impartial by trying to disentangle all the threads that make up a story. That's an ambitious thing to do in two and a half minutes on TV. You have got to be aware of what your own prejudices and principles are and put them to one side in a box."

In the Middle East, words can be loaded with hidden meanings. Bowen, who lived in Jerusalem for five years, had an early taste of the consequences of getting it wrong when he referred to those bearded men who appear in the aftermath of suicide bombings to mop up every drop of blood of the victims as "zealots".

The BBC struggles to convince Israelis that it will give them a fair hearing, he acknowledges. "It's certainly the case that many Israelis and... many people in the British Jewish community regard us as, if not anti-Israel actively, then certainly pro-Palestinian. Some regard us as being actively anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic. I think it's unfortunate because it is not true. The difficulty of reporting from the Middle East is that what people really want, even if they realise you have to represent all views, is for you to come down on their side. They want you to acknowledge their victimhood and that it's not their fault. If you don't, you are on the other side. The reality is more complicated than that. I'm not a cheerleader for any side."

Bowen was never a thwarted thesp - he was born to journalism. His father Gareth reported the 1966 Aberfan coal slurry disaster for the BBC and became editor of news at Radio Wales. After reading advanced international studies at Johns Hopkins University in both Bologna and Washington DC, he thrust his foot in the door of the BBC.

...Despite his susceptibility to the war drug, he was more truth-seeker than thrill-seeker. "Truth is the only motivation, the only rationalisation or excuse, frankly. I really felt strongly that it was necessary to look into the dark corners of the worst places. I was keen on doing it and I thought I could do it well. I still feel I could do it well actually, but I choose not to take the risks now." He's been to Lebanon, Jerusalem and Amman in the previous fortnight, but his vantage point now is the analytical "rooftop" view that he used to despise.

...Now, he is again delivering his insights on the world's most troubled territories. His current assessment offers little reassurance. The diminishing prospect of a two-state solution in Israel means an increased risk of global crisis, he believes. "In December 1906, people didn't think 1914 was going to happen. The world was globalised by the standard of the time - there were undersea cables, telegraphs, fast ocean liners. They thought they lived in a hi-tech world. There hadn't been a really serious war for some time and it was a period of peace and technological innovation," he says. "The more I see of the instabilities of the Middle East, the more I worry that something terrible could be lying ahead of us unless we are very careful. And lucky."