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As a public body, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is also covered by freedom of information - well, partly anyway, and the limits of this are now being tested.

According to of the Freedom of Information Act, the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is only covered by FOI "in respect of information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature".

The ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has just lost a at the Information Tribunal over exactly what this phrase covers. It concerned an internal ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ report, the "Balen report", on the corporation's news coverage of the Middle East, an always controversial matter.

The case involved much argument over the meaning of the word "journalism", with the Tribunal distinguishing between "functional journalism" and strategic policy.

Personally, I haven't read the report in question, and my work making FOI requests is separate from the activity of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ team who deal with incoming FOI requests. So I can't comment on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s point of view or what might happen next.

But what is interesting from the FOI perspective is that this is the latest in a series of Tribunal decisions which have overruled the Information Commissioner in the direction of being more favourable to the disclosure of information. This pattern was not widely expected prior to FOI coming into force, when it was generally predicted to be the other way around.

And now that people have started asking me whether I am a functional journalist or a strategic journalist, I have decided the safest thing to do is just look puzzled. That seems to work so far.

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