If you don't want to break BBC impartiality rules, don't admit in your news report you started crying when you saw a world leader was apparently in the end game of his life.

An excerpt from the BBC story:

Barbara Plett was initially cleared by the head of editorial complaints over the From Our Own Correspondent report on Radio 4 but a listener appealed.

The ruling related to her description of a scene when the Palestinian leader was flown out of his compound.

"When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose from his ruined compound, I started to cry," she said in the 30 October 2004 broadcast.

Yasser Arafat died on 11 November 2004 at a French military hospital in Paris.

'Tearful eulogy'

Ms Plett's piece led to hundreds of complaints from listeners.

The BBC Governors' Programme Complaints Committee upheld part of the appeal.

The committee rejected the assertion by the person who appealed that the report was a "tearful eulogy" and a "flagrant violation" of editorial guidelines.

It said Ms Plett's report was balanced by references to Mr Arafat's "obvious failings".

But the governors concluded that the reference to crying did breach the guidelines on due impartiality.