What BBC failed to understand...

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Sri Lanka: Truth, bias and the BBC: "The second is that, no matter how much we strive to maintain our guidelines of impartiality and accuracy, there will always be people on either side convinced we are biased against them."

First of all, we do not have two official parties here. One side is a democratically elected government and the other side is barbaric terrorists who keep on assassinating people and also recruiting child soldiers. Over 250 suicide bombs for god sake..

Is this what people in Briton funding for?
quote:
"Unseen violence

Apart from all the above, there are some difficult problems reporting Sri Lanka.

Lots of the worst things that happen go on well away from the eyes of independent journalists.

In these circumstances, when we can't be sure for ourselves who has done what, all we can do is report what people say has happened.

In Sri Lanka that often means this: A group of people are killed, quite possibly civilians. The government and the Tigers accuse each other of the killings.

To complicate matters further, "shadowy paramilitary groups" may have been involved.

In other words, a lot of lying goes on, but unless you have the proof of who is lying, all you can do is report what the different sides say.
That can be frustrating for journalists. But for victims of the violence, and their friends and relatives, it is sometimes seen as bias on our part if we carry the denials of those accused of the attacks."
end quote

In the well known case of Dr. Kelly vs BBC, BBC governors had to resign for reporting a story without proper evidence to support the claim. Now on what basis BBC adopt the same and escaping from any investigation. The most funny part of it is, BBC itself here admit that they cannot verify the claims made by the sources.

Since the BBC is a public charity in UK, funded by the public, it has to take the responsibility for publishing unverified reports based on its own conclusions and for admitting it.

Further, by saying so BBC is implying that the government of Sri Lanka is LYING?
This is a serious accusation against a democratically elected government and I do hope the relevant authorities will investigate further on this claim by this reporter.
quote
"In the meantime we can only continue to try to give as balanced a view as we can on events, knowing that that is the main reason why so many people think the BBC is worth following. "
end quote

Assuring a balanced view is important but should not be compromised by trying to IMPOSE another sides opinion, published to counter attack an official statement issued by the government of Sri Lanka. This is worse when the other side becomes a well known terrorist organization that the BBC is counting on.