When news becomes a commodity
Man from Sri Lanka
As soon as the loud explosion was heard at an Air Force base adjacent
to the Sri Lanka's international airport, the international and local
news vultures began to tear apart the carcass of truth. They were
having a field day in fabricating some sensational news from gossips
and rumours whatever they could lay their hands on, merely, to earn
a few dollars. Words crunching is the name of the game and most of
them are paid by the number of words.
According to the new monitored in London, it was the Washington Post
website who published it first with a highly speculative report;
Sri
Lanka says airport under suspected rebel attack
Reuters Sunday, March 25, 2007; 4:15 PM COLOMBO (Reuters)
- Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels attacked Sri Lanka's international
airport north of the capital Colombo before dawn on Monday, the military
said, and witnesses who live nearby told Reuters they could hear gunfire.
The Toronto Star and msnbc still keep the original report as it received.
(http://www.thestar.com/News/article/195894
25/03/07)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17787069/ '
BBC did not loose any time to supplement the previous reporting with
their own
"Gun battle' at Colombo airport
Reports from Sri Lanka say that the international airport in the capital
Colombo has come under attack by suspected Tamil Tiger rebels. Witnesses
have reported hearing the sound of gunfire and explosions. A spokesman
for the Sri Lankan military told the Reuters news agency that fighting
was continuing at the airport The airport was attacked in July 2001
by Tamil Tiger rebels who destroyed six civilian jets, along with
over a dozen military aircraft at a base next door. (BBC - 25/03/07)
(http://www.thestar.com/News/article/195894 25/03/07)
Sri Lanka reports airport under
rebel attack
Mar 25, 2007 05:48 PM
REUTERS
COLOMBO - Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels attacked Sri Lanka's international
airport north of the capital Colombo before dawn on Monday, the military
said, and witnesses who live nearby told Reuters they could hear gunfire.
"There is an attack going on , but we don't have any details,"
said Flight Lieutenant Kanista Rajapakse of the Media Centre for National
Security. "There is fighting going on."
The attack comes in the wake of a series of deadly land and sea battles
and amid an escalating new chapter in the island's two-decade civil
war, which has killed around 68,000 people since 1983.
"I can hear gunfire from near the airport," said R.M. Gunasekera,
an accountant who lives near the town of Katunayake around 37 kilometres
north of Colombo, where the airport is situated.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) last attacked the airport
in 2001, the year before a ceasefire deal which has since collapsed
on the ground, in which half of the Sri Lankan airlines fleet of airplanes
was destroyed.
President Mahinda Rajapakse's government aims to defeat the Tigers
militarily within 2-3 years, and is pushing on with military offensives
in the east and north despite pleas from the international community
to stop.
The rebels, who are battling for an independent state for minority
Tamils in the island's north and east, have warned of a bloodbath
and analysts say a new chapter in a two-decade war that has killed
around 4,000 troops, civilians and Tigers in the past 15 months alone
is spreading.