Impossible to verify 2,000 dead

From the BBC Editors blog Jon Williams, BBC World News Editor, offers an interesting perspective on how easy it is for big media to get access to powerful people who want a soapbox, but how difficult it is to verify basic facts,

For the BBC to have access to someone so influential [as Georgian President Saakashvili], as a key moment, is of course vital to our storytelling. But that level of access also carries with it an inherent danger. We need to ensure balanced coverage…
…It’s clear there’s been great suffering in both Georgia and South Ossetia, but it’s proved impossible for us to verify that figure of 2,000 dead. And for people, like journalists, who deal in facts, that’s means war is dangerous, dirty…and frustrating. link