Biased reporting - BBC has done it again!

by Indeewara Thilakarathne and Ranga Chandrarathne

Previously, we have written two articles highlighting the issues in regard to the biased nature of reporting the conflict war in Sri Lanka. The BBC’s biased reporting was discussed.

Reading the BBC’s South Asia report on the web and watching the visual report placed by the Colombo based Roland Buerk’s coverage suggests BBC continuing their standards biased reporting from the former British Colony taking the side of a terror group and making mild reporting on killings of innocent people by the LTTE.

BBC online report

The BBC online report’s title and the lead reads: “Blast kills Sri Lankan Minister - Sri Lankan Highways Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle is among 12 people killed in a suicide bombing, officials say.”

It is odd listening to Burke’s accent. It is obvious that he can’t pronounce either the deceased Minister’s last name or President Rajapaksa’s name properly.

Being English we can pardon our BBC counterpart for not learning local languages!

But the inaccurate report. No way!

If the BBC reporter checked local media sources he would have learnt (even after the initial report was lodged that the number of deaths were at high as 15 which he ignored.

As reported in the local media quoting the local (Weliweriya) police sources, the “LTTE suicide cadre who targeted Minister Fernandopulle had come in the guise of a marathon runner participating at the New Year sports event”. This is indeed a good human angle to explore and verify and share it, if it is true to the global as well as local readers.

Missing human elements

One of the real tragedies of this suicide bombing is the death of innocent victims. Among the dead included; K. A. Karunarathne, who was a former national and South Asian marathon gold medallist. Karunarathne, who was a scheduled to take part in the aborted marathon as a result of the bomb blast. Karunarathne also took part in the last Olympics held in Barcelona.

The national athletic coach, Lakshman de Alwis also died in the bomb attack. The busy BBC reporter has failed to capture any of these human elements as a plight of a terror attack on innocent civilians.

For a nation, trying to fill their sorrows and losses due to a brutal war, sports heroes are among the national heroes.

During his career as a politician, Minister Fernandopulle has held the many ministerial portfolios including, the Minister of Catholic Affairs, and National Unity, Minister of Ports and Aviation, and finally as the Minister of Road Development.

There were other human elements of the minister’s death. He was 55 years old and a father of two children. He had also been appointed the UPFA organiser for the Trincomalee District for the forthcoming provincial council elections in the East.

These are all important aspects of the report or a supplementary report but it is evident that the busy BBC reporters are busy enjoying their hug perks and socialising in Colombo without taking any interest in reporting events accurately.

Even the anti-Government pro-LTTE Tamil Net provided a better coverage of the event than the “professional BBC report:

The Tamil Net (www.tamilnet.com) reported the event with an accurate figure of the deaths and the number who were wounded as follows:

“Sri Lanka’s Minister of Highways and Road Development, Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, was killed in a bomb blast at the public playground in Weliweraya, located in the Gampaha district of Western Province, around 8:00 a. m. Sunday. 12 persons were killed and more than 50 wounded in the attack that took place while the minister was waving a flag to start off a marathon race in connection with the Tamil and Sinhala New Year celebrations.”

The important issue emerging from BBC’s Colombo based reporting is whether it is worth for the British tax payers to place expensive reporters who are sending less than second rate and biased reports.

Report from Down Under

Our friends from Down under the usually biased Australian media for their sympathetic reporting on LTTE did a good job without anyone in the field on this occasion. Using the AFP wire service the Australia Broadcasting Corporation’s website reported “A senior Sri Lankan Government minister has been killed in a powerful bomb blast that also left at least another 10 people dead and 50 wounded, police said. (www.abc.net.au).

Although the ABC could not really checked the number of people died after the bomb blast, they were able to report the number of wounded people giving a picture of the extent of the attack by LTTE.

BBC’s video reporting had the same deficiency but in our view had more sinister motives including a hint of receiving information from the LTTE about possible future attacks. If this is true he may be of interest to anti terrorist intelligent experts about LTTE communication networks.

The video report carried a small summary which read: “Bomb kills Sri Lankan minister.

At least 12 people including a senior Sri Lankan government minister, have been killed in bomb blast near the capital Colombo.”

The video report titled the “Aftermath of the bomb blast”, by BBC’s Roland Buerk is indeed a biased report without saying who did this brutal killing. If you just analysed the last concluding words it reveals the British bias.

Buerk concluded his video report with the following words: “... “The Government says it is winning but this killing ....may be an attempt by the rebels that they can strike back”!

Why one of the world’s nasty terrorist groups become a rebel group in the eyes and eyes of an “unbiased” BBC reporter?

How does he know whether the rebel group will attack again and possibly when? Does the BBC reporter get any special LTTE information?

Above all his attack on the Government’s claim that they are not really winning the war! Isn’t this biased for an agency who claims that they don’t take sides in their objective news reporting?