| British journalism, like some other things in that country, is in a sorry state. The once-respected Times newspapers, including the reputed Sunday Times has fallen from the journalistic pedestal it once occupied in its heyday under the editorship of Harold Evans.
It might be selling more than some of its competitors among the Sunday broadsheets. But the quality of its journalism could be judged by the standards set by some of its main writers. One of them is the award-winning but highly over-rated Marie Colvin whose penchant for bias and false reporting has been proven so clearly that not even her bosses in the Sunday Times could stop her being chastised for bias and inaccuracies, despite their procrastinations and red herrings. I should know because I took her before the UK Press Complaints Commission (PCC) along with the Sunday Times way back in 2001 and won my argument that they had violated two basic provisions of the Code of Ethics to which they had subscribed.
One would have expected a serious journalist concerned with the reputation of journalism in general, if not her own reputation, to mend her ways after being severely reproached by the PCC in its adjudication. On the contrary, Marie Colvin carries on regardless and her undisguised bias towards the LTTE and her antipathy for the Sri Lanka Government continues to this day.
Last week Marie Colvin wrote a story in the London Times headlined “Ärtillery pounds wounded Tamils trapped on beach.” This is not a comment piece. It is meant to be straight reporting. It begins thus : “A thousand amputees were among the wounded and dying waiting to be rescued from a beach in northeast Sri Lanka yesterday, according to aid agencies.” To say that this is tendentious reporting would be a gross understatement. Her story appeared on March 22. So, yesterday would have to mean March 21. According to her there were one thousand amputees among those waiting to be rescued. Obviously then there had to be more than one thousand persons on that beach.
Marie Colvin is not particularly known for her prowess at arithmetic. That too has been proven. In two of the articles she wrote on Sri Lanka in April and July 2001, Colvin who had surreptitiously crossed over into LTTE territory gave conflicting figures for the days she spent with the LTTE. In one article she said she spent one week with the Tigers. In the other she claimed to have spent two weeks with them. A person who cannot tell the difference between 7 days and 14 days is hardly likely to know what a thousand is like. It is because this sounds such an exaggeration she should have named these “aid agencies,” which any good reporter would have done. After all these agencies are there on the ground and the government is aware of their presence.
That first sentence seems to unwittingly contradict what some in the international arena have stated. Critics of Sri Lanka had said that they are unable to assess the situation in the war zone because of a lack of independent observers and demanded they be allowed access. Now, according to Marie Colvin there are “aid agencies” which she does not name. Later on she mentions one, the ICRC, so one may conclude that it is one of those that gave her these figures. Did the ICRC or whoever actually take a count and arrive at this nice round figure of one thousand amputees?
If it is claimed by critics including some misinformed British MPs on the brink of defeat at the next election that there are no “independent observers” logically they dismiss the ICRC and any other “aid agency” in the conflict zone as “independent observers” and so consider them undependable. Colvin blithely claims one thousand amputees. Mind you, not persons whose limbs have been blown apart and maimed and left there unattended. They are amputees and imply they received some surgical treatment.
If there is no medical staff and no medicines or very scarce resources, who and how were such a large number of amputations performed? Surely not with a pair of scissors and a table knife! Colvin by exaggerating the numbers of wounded and thereby hoping to blame the Sri Lankan armed forces without a word about the now established fact that the LTTE shoots those attempting to escape, has given the lie to the total lack of care for the wounded.
Her LTTE bias which she abundantly displayed in her 2001 articles and was duly castigated by the PCC for her inaccurate and “fundamentally biased” reporting, is clearly seen when she quotes LTTE political chief Nadesan. He talks of “daily bombing” and “aerial attacks” without asking the basic questions that any cub reporter would have asked. Who gains more by shelling wounded civilians waiting to be evacuated? Is it the government or the LTTE which as has been established, has and is trying to prevent civilians from leaving. The more the civilians the more it can beat the drum of genocide and unconcern.
It seems so funny that Colvin places undying faith in a leader of an organization who calls for a “ceasefire loudly and clearly” when the very same organization had violated 3000 times the ceasefire agreement that existed prior to it being dumped by this government as unworthy and useless. In agreeing with the objections I raised against Colvin’s articles and the Sunday Times for not giving me the right of reply, the PCC said that her reports “had apportioned the Sinhalese a role in the conflict that was not historically accurate and that the reporter’s account of her surreptitious movements into government territory having spent time with a terrorist organization were fundamentally biased.”
At a discussion in London I met Marie Colvin and she asked me whether I don’t like her writing. I said that it was not her writing I don’t like but what she writes. When she tried to cross over clandestinely to government lines from LTTE held territory she was struck by shrapnel and I was genuinely sorry when she said she lost the sight of one eye. I don’t think that is what prevents Marie Colvin from seeing the truth. She has gone into many a war zone and written from there. But there is a great chasm between bravado and good journalism. She might be endowed with the former. Sadly she lacks the qualities needed for the latter- firstly, honesty. |
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