Sir, on September 12 your paper said 98 LTTE men die in Lanka.
One week earlier you reported the death of 230 Tigers. Since I have all your reports on
Sri Lanka on file I took the trouble to look into the issues of the previous months to
find the figures of the LTTE killed as reported in your columns. Leaving out the single
and double digits, you had given the following figures: 116 (May 31); 150 (May 23); and
458 rebels killed between April 27 and May 4 (your report of May 4). Totalling up all the
figures, I find that you have told your readers that 1220 LTTE men have been killed within
the four and a half months between May 1 and September 12 this year.
We
live in a world of instant communication, and we in London are better acquainted with the
ground situation in the north and east of Sri Lanka than those in the country's capital
from where your reports emanate.
While not wishing to dispute figures as given in your paper, may I take
the liberty (as one who has been in the journalistic field for 45 years), to suggest that
you please adopt some safe journalistic norms while reporting. Instead of merely saying 98
killed and 230 killed, your sub-editors could either put the news within quotes, or source
the information to the Sri Lankan government, such as, "230 Tigers killed, claims
government."
Your readers might not be conscious of the fact that your correspondents
and news agencies are merely passing on to you what the government tells them. They accept
whatever you publish as authentic information that you provide them; hence, as a news
paper of some standing it is your credibility that would be a stake. Truth being the first
casualty in war, one would prefer that The Asian Age does not become the second casualty
in the process.
