In any war, the opposing sides are, expectedly, highly intent on coming out the winner. The battles that take place can be often be bloody and cost both sides thousands of lives. The lives that are lost are not only those of combatants, but almost always include heavy civilian deaths. A sad reality. But one that, thankfully, wealthy countries and their humanitarian organizations try admirably to avert or help with.

Yet, a lot of the time, these untold sufferings of the innocents are rarely visible to the outside world. The last economic embargo on Tamil areas is a case in point. This is where the work of journalism is particularly critical. They are tasked with documenting events accurately, not just to catalogue history, but also to ensure that these are highlighted to the world in the present time. Their work assumes a wholly more significant purpose, when such events adversely affect humanity. In these cases, it is their timely reporting of such events that result in raising the much-needed awareness to trigger humanitarian action.

Journalists are expected to inform the world of events accurately, framing it within its context and provide a balanced range of opinions from either side. Sadly, too often we find that media organizations, despite reputations, struggle with balance. As guardians of the fourth estate, many news organizations pride themselves in making everyone they report on accountable for their actions. The BBC has, for years, established itself as a leader in such high standards of journalism and impartiality. They were probably the one that every other news organization got measured by. In many parts of the world, they are highly trusted and they claim to take great pains to establish the accuracy and authenticity of their information and are quite rightly expected to do so.

Reporting in Sri Lanka

Recent times, though, have seen that reputation severely tested. None more so than in Sri Lanka, where both it’s reports and reporting style border more on propaganda than credible journalism. Currently, the BBC has a few reporters and editors covering the Sri Lankan conflict. Although their entire Sri Lanka desk can be considered to be highly questionable, their chief offender seems to be their Singhalese journalist, Dumeetha Luthra.

You would be forgiven for thinking that, in an environment where the shadow of a government that brutally persecutes its minorities prevails, news organizations such as the BBC would persevere to report the truth regardless of the difficulties faced. After all, that’s how they initially built themselves a reputation as the worlds most trusted news source.

Regardless of its past accolades, the question is, have they been able to keep that reputation intact? Especially in Sri Lanka.

The Sencholai massacre

On the 14th of August 2006, Sri Lankan Kfir bombers screeched over the Sencholai orphanage, in the Tamil northeast of Sri Lanka, bombarding it with 16 high-explosive bombs in cruel accuracy. Beneath them, schoolgirls and their teachers fled for their lives. But not everyone was so lucky.

When the dust and smoke settled, the carnage was terrifying.

51 schoolgirls and 4 staff members were killed and 129 children were critically wounded. Initial reports suggested that up to 61 schoolgirls were killed, but the Director of Education for Mullaithivu district, P Ariyaradnam, later revised the figure to a confirmed 55 killed.

News reports stated that parts of the orphanage, at the time, were being used by the international St. Johns Ambulance Service, to deliver first aid teaching to school children from the surrounding areas. St. Johns Ambulance Service offers this service throughout Sri Lanka, as part of its humanitarian objectives in the war-torn country.

The reaction

Possibly the first to break the news, TamilNet.com, quoted officials from the LTTE Peace Secretariat describing the air strike as “a horrible act of terror” and requesting international agencies to urgently visit the bombed site.

The TNA, a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four largest Tamil political parties in Sri Lanka, condemned the air strike and appealed to the international community for help.

“This attack is not merely atrocious and inhuman - it clearly has a genocidal intent. It is yet another instance of brazen state terrorism,” the TNA said in it’s statement.

Both the UNICEF and the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) immediately sent their staff to the scene. JoAnna Van Gerpen, the UNICEF Representative in Sri Lanka, recounted the events of the day as follows:

“As our team was driving towards the compound, where the incident had happened, they encountered many ambulances and vehicles coming away from that direction carrying bodies of children and young people who had been killed and injured”

“From what we understand at this point, these children were from surrounding communities."

What shocked many was the inhumanness with which the air strike was carried out. Again speaking to TamilNet, Mr. Sivarajah, the village government officer, stated that the area was a declared humanitarian peace zone with 4 orphanages within a 1 km radius. Being a peace zone, its exact geographical coordinates had been given to the Sri Lankan government to ensure that there was no excuse for an “accidental” bombing. Little did they suspect that those exact coordinates would later be used to blast the area away with 16 bombs.

The BBC’s coverage

Some called it an “unpardonable atrocity”, others “a crime against humanity”. The horrific scale of the killings speaks for itself. But strangely, for the much-reputed BBC, the event did not even qualify as a top story in South Asia, let alone the World. This was a bit difficult to palate, especially when other major news outlets carried both direct and compiled reports about the massacre.

If you had been watching the BBC news websites though, you may have not even known that such an event took place. The BBC did not even headline the story or provide a news link for it in its main pages. To view a snapshot of how they presented their main news page to a global audience.

You would have noticed that the horrifying bombing of schoolgirls only plays a cursory second fiddle in the story of the 14th of August 2006, at 09:21 GMT (See links at the end). This is while, at the same time, other major news organizations had started breaking the news prominently to the global community. If you thought that was cause for concern, the BBCs’ South Asia news site painted an entirely different picture.