BBC Arab Spring coverage facing impartiality review

The BBC's coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings is to be evaluated in the latest impartiality and accuracy review launched by the BBC Trust.

The review will look at the BBC's reporting on events that started in Tunisia in December 2010, but spread to other Middle East nations this year, particularly Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen.

Edward Mortimer, the senior vice president of the Salzburg Global Seminar who is a former UN director of communications and expert in Middle East affairs, is to lead the review.

He will look at coverage on the national BBC TV and radio channels, as well as BBC World News and online, using content analysis, audience research and interviews with stakeholders.

"I am honoured and excited by this assignment. Events in the Middle East during 2011 up-ended many widely accepted notions about the region," said Mortimer.

"Such stories are always the most exciting for journalists to cover, but also present many challenges. It will be fascinating to examine in detail how the BBC rose to these."

BBC Trustee Alison Hastings, who is chair of the Trust's editorial standards committee, added: "The events that came to be known as the Arab Spring were extremely fast-moving and complex. That makes it a difficult story to cover.

"The challenge for the BBC, as with all controversial areas, is to ensure that it maintains the high standards of impartiality and accuracy that audiences expect, both in the UK and around the world, where many rely on the BBC's international news services.

"We are delighted that Edward Mortimer has agreed to lead this important review for the Trust - his distinguished record, and expertise, in both Middle East issues and journalism, will be a great asset."

Previous impartiality reviews have covered the BBC's business and science output, with the latter concluding that the corporation's journalists gave too much weight to fringe views on stories such as climate change and GM crops.