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| Sunday, 4 September 2005 |
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A peep into tsunami media coverage by Thava Sajitharan A treatise on Media behaviour titled 'Post-Tsunami Media Coverage - The Sri Lankan experience' was launched last week in Colombo. The study, focusing on both print and electronic media coverage during a selected week, was led by Mr. Tilak Jayaratne, former Director of Sri Lanka College of Journalism. It was pointed out during the launching event that such studies were a need of the hour as it would enhance media professionalism. The executive summary of the study says the scope of the research was confined to 7 days from March 20 to 26, covering newspaper coverage in all three languages and radio and TV coverage only in Sinhala owing to time and resource constraints. Speaking at the event Dr. Sasanka Perera, lecturer at the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo, insisted that the text of the study which is in English, should soon be made available in the two national languages and accessible to media personnel if "the attempt is not to become a joke". He had earlier in his foreword to the treatise observed that a news report is "always a representation, an interpretation, a selection or a edited version of 'reality'" and thus ruled out the conventional notion of truth in news reporting. He'd noted the 'truth' might be the first casualty of media activity. Raising concerns over the question of 'offering voice to the voiceless in media coverage' a participant who represented an electronic media, pointed out that the time period taken into consideration for the research was probably too late and claimed that, had it been a period close to the calamity voices of voiceless could have been heard in their channel. The research was facilitated and funded by Transparency International Sri Lanka in partnership with Friedrich Ebert Foundation. |
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