- Title: [SW News](SHASNA)BBC: No Longer a Source of Reliable
News!!!
- Posted by/on:[AMJ][Thursday, February 8, 2001]
BBC: No Longer a
Source of Reliable News!!
SOMALI HISTORICAL
SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA
MediaWatch
Boston, MA
February 8, 2001
The BBC Somali Section was lately rife with missteps and
misinformation
concerning recent events in the region. Given the abundance of
Internet
information and alternate views, it raises some troubling questions
about the
integrity of such reporting. Is the British Taxpayer subsidy of this
hallowed
institution worth the price?
and is the Somali language programming, one of the BBC World Service
43
languages, heed today's journalistic ethics and standards,
especially when
their reporting is out of step with the events about which they
report?
Ultimately the BBC and the British Taxpayers will decide. But
history, the
Somali audience and the free markets will be the final
arbiter. In the
meantime, it is worth noting that the Somali people on every corner
of the
globe had great respect for the BBC. They depended on it as a source
of news,
and they were proud of it. When someone said: "I heard it from
the BBC", it
was certain, then, that the BBC went great lengths to confirm the
sources.
Confirmation, it seems, is no longer the modus operandi of the BBC.
Worse
yet, as far as the Somali issue is concerned, the BBC Somali Section
motto
is: do not confirm sources and never add balance. The only
perspective
offered and validated is that of Yusuf-Garaad Omar, the head
of the BBC
Somali Section and a very close cousin of the Arta Faction
President. A
splinter faction that savors the division of the Somali Nation and a
great
appetite for the shedding of Somali blood and cash donations from
Libya,
Sudan and Yemen. As an excellent news organization, it is hard to
imagine
that one man has been allowed to dictate coverage of Somali issues.
May be
our hopes were tragically misplaced!
Meanwhile, thank goodness for the speed of the Internet and the
Somali TRUTH
SQUADS. In this medium, the Somali people at least have a chance to
provide
accurate and instant information about events as they unfold.
We hope the BBC Somali Section quickly finds its lost bearings in
these
troubled waters. We hope that our former pride in the news service
can be
restored. We also hope the BBC is again a source of pride for Her
Majesty. We
hope it doesn't take the road taken by the UN's IRIN News
Organization. An
organization intended for the coordination of humanitarian affairs
and to
bridging the information gap, but has sadly recently profited from
the
sufferings of the Somali people; profiting by fueling the flames of
the
Somali civil war. We hope that they too will refocus their energies
to
humanitarian affairs and not to fabricated lies and constant parade
of pro
Arta faction witnesses that never surface. Witnesses referred to by
IRIN as
"confirmed reliable inside Government sources". A
Government that doesn't
even govern and in a prison of its own making!
SHASNA MEMBERS*
Boston, MA
USA
*SHASNA is an advocacy group based in Boston,
Massachusetts. It stands for
the unity and peaceful coexistence of the Somali people. It
supports the
creation of a Federal system of governance to safeguard the emerging
free
markets of the Recovery Zones. SHASNA encourages corporate and
individual
investments in the Recovery Zones. It has presences in both
Puntland
(Boosaaso, Garoowe, Buurtinle, Bacaadweyn and Gaalkacyo) and
Somaliland
(Hergeysa, Berbera and Burco).
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