BBC World Service seeks permanent office in Myanmar
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Yangon - The British Broadcasting Corporation has begun talks with Myanmar to set up a permanent office for reporting and training,reports said Sunday.
The government that took office in March 2011 has made substantial political reforms and ended prior censorship on the media.
"The first thing that we want to do is offer a substantial training package and to establish a project office," BBC World Service director Peter Horrocks told The Myanmar Times.
Horrocks said the BBC wished to provide all its English-language radio and television services, its Burmese-language radio service and journalism training inside the country.
"We're being invited (to provide training), but it's also something the BBC thinks about carefully, in terms of whether it's appropriate to be working with journalistic organisations that haven't previously been free and independent," he said.
The Burmese-language service was often criticised by the military junta that ruled during 1988-2010 for bias against the regime.
But the service was also criticised for alleged bias in favour ofthe Muslim Rohingya minority group that was targeted by sectarian violence in June in the western Rakhine State.
"Interestingly, around the world, we've had a lot of criticism that we have not reported the story sufficiently and we haven't given enough of a perspective on the violence against Muslims," he said.
He acknowledged that it was not easy to report on Myanmar from outside the country.//DPA
