The BBC is an organisation which is subject to the duties imposed under FOIA only in respect of information held ‘for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature’ (Part VI of Schedule 1 to FOIA). On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal handed down a judgment which considered the question of how information held by the BBC should be approached if it was held for a number of different purposes, including but not limited to journalistic purposes – see the judgment here. The Court of Appeal held, irrespective of whether the information was held for multiple purposes, provided that one of the purposes included a genuine journalistic purpose, the information was exempt from the application of the duties embodied in FOIA. In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeal rejected the proposition that the question whether the information should be disclosed should be decided by reference to the ‘dominant purpose’ for which the information was held. The Court of Appeal also gave guidance on the meaning of the concept of ‘journalism’. In particular, it agreed with the tribunal that the three elements of functional journalism were (a) the collection, writing and verification of material; (b) the editing and presentation of material for publication; (c) the upholding of journalistic standards by supervision, training and review of journalists and their work. The Court of Appeal went on to hold that the BBC had been entitled to treat a report examining the BBC’s coverage of events in the Middle East as falling within the journalism exemption. In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeal confirmed that the fact that the report had been used by the BBC for strategic managerial purposes did not prevent it falling within the journalism exemption.