Trevor Asserson and Dr Haran Shani-Narkiss
The Asserson Report: Broken Guidelines and How to Fix Them, an Interview with Dr Haran Shani-Narkiss and Carly Maisel

Trevor Asserson has for more than 30 years been recognised by directories as one of the UK’s leading litigation solicitors. He is the founding partner of Asserson, a pioneering firm that brings British legal excellence to the heart of Tel Aviv. Before launching Asserson, Trevor worked at Herbert Smith Freehills, Europe’s premier litigation firm, and later was Global Head of International Litigation at Bird & Bird, one of Europe’s largest law firms.

Trevor’s career is marked by numerous high-profile successes, acting for and against sovereign states – including the UK Government – multi-national corporations and High Net Worth individuals. Trevor’s cases have been widely covered in broadcast and print journalism, on TV, Radio, and national papers including in the UK, Israel, the US and beyond.

TREVOR ASSERSON AND THE BBC

Early in his career Trevor acted for two UK political parties in a claim of bias against the BBC. In 2002 he founded BBCwatch, a platform scrutinising BBC’s Middle East coverage, and published a number of independent reports exposing BBC bias in the Middle East. Trevor was selected by the Thomas Committee, a BBC appointed independent panel, as one of two leading UK experts on BBC Middle East reporting. His article, “What Went Wrong at the BBC: A Public Monopoly Abusing Its Charter Through Bias Against Israel,” published by JCPA, remains a critical analysis of media accountability.

On 9 September 2024 Trevor launched his c200 Page Report titled ‘The Israel-Hamas War and the BBC’ which includes an in-depth analysis of some 9 million words of BBC output in both English and Arabic. The Report combined traditional forensic analysis with analysis by a team of data scientists. This innovative combination of skills has enabled the Report to analyse BBC output in novel and revealing ways.

The Asserson Report constituted an in-depth analysis and revealed institutionalised bias in BBC news reporting. The Report was widely reported and was the basis of a petition in the House of Lords for an inquiry into BBC reporting.

Trevor as Thought Leader

Trevor is a thought leader whose articles on judicial reasonableness, the role of unelected judges, and Judicial Independence – all relevant to the recent contentious judicial reforms in Israel - have been featured in various publications including Globes, The Jerusalem Post, and The Jewish Telegraph.

Dr. Haran Shani-Narkiss is an interdisciplinary researcher with expertise in the fields of Computational Neuroscience, Human Behaviour and AI Models. Haran founded and led RIMe (Research for Impartial Media), where he has brought together a team of data scientists, analysts and experts of the Arabic language/culture who have contributed extensively to the Report.