Friday, November 10, 2006

contrast 3: bbc’s "news"

today pussies attacked a ferry carrying 300 civilians to jaffna; they were beaten back by navy vessels escorting the vessel. navy lost 1 perhaps 2 dvoras and several sailors.

bbc's story is headlined: Sea battle erupts off Sri Lanka. since the story contains a reference to passenger vessel they were aware what the terrorists were attacking.

now check yesterday's bbc headline: Lanka army 'kills 45 civilians'.
that number 45 was taken from terrorist spokesman puleedevan. even in the first version of bbc's story ( bbc has a habit of changing the story, without indicating so, in the same url. however one can find old versions in various internet caches if one tries. ) it is clear that they knew icrc was able to confirm deaths of 18 only at that time. in fact only 23 people are independently confirmed dead as of now. they should have known that puleedevan, who is nowhere near the scene, has an interest in inflating the number for propaganda purposes, while icrc was there. but they chose his number instead of icrc's for the headline.

contrast.

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of course biased and racist reporting by bbc regarding sri lanka is not new. many people have pointed out variety of errors in bbc reporting throughout the years. let me make it clear, it is the bbc in particular not international media in general, that is found fault here. while others like the wire services do make errors occasionally, nobody else ever approaches this kind or level of errors

imo it has lot to do with individuals assigned for covering sri lanka ( dumeetha luthra , sandeshaya editors , etc.) and bbc bosses unwillingness or inability to enforce good journalistic practices on them. result is error upon error, many of them due to bias, in almost every story.

for instance, i counted 3 errors of facts in today's story. when i say errors of fact i don't mean blatantly biased headlines like above, but errors of facts. i will give only one since other 2 requires lengthy explanations.
The monitors are unable to confirm any of the details of the battle.
Their staff stopped traveling on Sea Tiger boats earlier this year after the rebels said they could not guarantee their safety.
!? monitors traveling on sea tiger boats?
as sri lanka monitoring mission has ruled several times, cease fire agreement does not allow tigers to use sea and they count all sea tiger activity at sea as ceasefire violations. so monitors never ever were on a sea tiger boat. they stopped going on government vessels after tigers made an unsuccessful attack on a navy ferry carrying 700 military and its escort vessels (which had 2 monitors on board) in may and after ltte issued what monitors said were”threats" if they go on board navy vessels at about the same time. these facts are easily verifiable.

so much for bbc’s "journalism ".

if you want to make a complaint go here.

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meanwhile some sl bloggers quote whole passages from bbc (errors included) as if quoting from the bible. but then that kind of blogger never ventures out of colombo and confuses galle with matara.

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contrast 1
contrast 2

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

good stuff.

Voice in Colombo said...

I can understand the Norway's motive towards supporting tigers. Oil and selling weapons. But, why BBC?
My assumption is it's not BBC as an organization, but few people likes of Dumithra who damage the name of BBC by supporting Tigers. Top management of BBC should made aware of this, because they won't let only few people to create a bad image on credibility of BBC brand.

What Dumithra gain from tigers? Only she and god knows!

Anonymous said...

"one thing about gop in usa is that they really know how to win elections. they will win in this november midterm election too."

Who said that?
Couldn't have been anyone with one third of a normal sized brain!

Chandare said...

S/nut ,It is outrages how BBC handled the child soldiers report from UN.
http://chandare.blogspot.com/2006/11/headlines-you-will-not-see.html

Anonymous said...

I agree with jiffyspaceman, since we have received confirming evidence that certain Tamils working at the BBC's London units are invloved with the LTTE. Some of them have been known to have been involved in the intimidation of Tamil civilians in the UK. I regret that the names cannot be revealed here due to security reasons. Perhaps, someday-20 odd years later, when all this is over, you'll know who betrayed you.

Keshi said...

heyyy Ashanthi and Sittingnut hows it going? Miss u guys!

Keshi.

Anonymous said...

Some cats just can't stay in the basket.

Just Mal said...

BBC generally has a left wing anti-establishment inclination. In addition to that they employ a large number of Sri Lankan Tamils associated with the LTTE.

Seriously, who gives a shit. As far as I'm concerned BBC can report what they want. The government and other anti-LTTE individuals should keep up their counter propaganda campaign.

They seem to be doing quite well at the moment. The government forces bomb and kill hundreds of those terrorist buggers (even if they hide among civilians) every week and no one says anything except keep up the good work and that they recognise the government's concerns about national security. The moment LTTE tries to bomb the defence sec - a legitimate military target, there comes all the condemnations. All the whingeing about A9 is gone now after they sent a few truckloads of aid.

The important thing is that BBC always seem to end up having to change their news items after complaints. Let's keep up the heat.

The government should find a way to kick out that bitch Dumithra. Frances was so much better.

Btw, shut the fuck up Ashanthi.

Anonymous said...

How about you do the same anonymous!