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| Sunday, 18 July 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Media politics - State and private Since the late 1980s Sri Lankans, as far as I can remember, are familiar with slogans such as 'free media', 'media freedom' 'rights of expression' etc. My attention was first focused on these in the early 1990s following those dark days when our society was brutalised and thousands of our people including journalists were slaughtered.
It was a time society just started to breathe freely. Private media after doing an excellent job during the period of civil conflict in the South was still under threat and pressure of the government. State media was fully engaged in brain washing people and justifying the killings of thousands. As I can remember before this era journalists were not a recognised group of people in our society. However after the political turmoil in the south when even journalists sacrificed their lives, the media and journalists became important pillars in our society. As university students in 1991 we prepared the stage for pioneers of the Free Media Movement (FMM) like Victor Ivan, Sunanda Deshapriya, Ajith Samaranayake, Ariyananda Dombagahawatta, Lucien Rajakarunanayake etc. Now, after about one and a half decades we are still discussing media freedom. However the dialogue is now focused on some different matters and the topic is now at a different level. What the media is demanding today is not what we demanded in the early 1990s. Today we are not demanding from government to stop the killing of journalists. We are demanding to protect lives of journalists from terrorists who are killing all their opponents. Assault or harassment of journalists can be heard of rarely in a society in which people are murdered by underworld gangs. People who sacrificed their lives have brought our governments to such a democratic level. At the same time some practices of governments limiting media freedom have been made obsolete with the development of technology. As an example media censorship is no longer valid. At the same time as a result of globalisation governments are responsible not only to their citizens but also to the whole world. Therefore any limitation or threat to media cannot be made without encountering international resistance. However, with the experience of Afghanistan and Iraq this theory is not applicable to powerful nations on missions in poor countries! State media institutions The latest level of our media freedom discussion has reached a stage when some of our journalists, leaders of FMM, Opposition parties and NGOs want to change the government by gaining control of the state media institutions. The important point is that those people do not see any harm nor do they feel that any adjustment is needed of the private media as they seem to assume that our private media is doing excellently in shouldering their social responsibility. First it can be seen that they are demanding the media freedom that is in US today. That is an excellent thing. The only government-owned or -controlled media in the US are those that broadcast overseas, such as the Voice of America. By law, this service is not allowed to broadcast within the country. There is partial government subsidy for public television and radio in the United States, but safeguards protect it against political interference. If these are the demands as media freedom today, a ruthless critic can ask whether our society is developed or matured to adopt such policies? At the same time one can ask, can there be two kinds of media freedom one for public media and another for private media? To find an answer to this question we have enough material to draw from in the recent past. There are three stages in our recent political past in which we can see how our private media behaved and shouldered its social responsibility. One period is during the second People's Alliance regime from October 2000 to September 2001. One of the main contributors to the toppling of that government elected by the people for 6 years within less than one year is our private media. A government is responsible for the wrongs it does and the Opposition is responsible for what it does to come to power. However if a government has no control over the media it is clear that that government would be toppled within two to three months. There was a media operation aimed at toppling that government within a specific time frame and only the government media resisted it. This operation was strengthened after the establishment of the 'Parivasa' Government in 2001. State media institutions became unpopular in their usual attempts at counter attack of the private media. Opinion makers like some pioneers of FMM, NGOs were in the forefront of this media war against that PA-JVP government formed on the basis of a Memorandum of Understanding. Peace process The second phase is during the UNF regime from December 2001 to March 2003. Our media was fully committed to the peace process initiated by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. All the decisions taken by the government in the name of peace, whether they affected national security, strengthened the LTTE military or whatever the risk the nation underwent, our private media was patient and did not criticize the government but protected it. At that time the state media also did its usual duty of protecting the government carrying government opinion to the people. Then there was no media war. Both state and private media were promoting the UNF political agenda. Toppling the UNF government before it completed its tenure received less media backing. At the time the opinion leaders mentioned above and the majority of FMM leaders were active partners of this agenda. It was a known secret that all private media were controlled by the Prime Minister's Media Division. There was interference of the private media. Editors, News Directors of some private media were removed and UNF loyalists appointed, but neither the FMM nor any other organisation talked about media freedom then. The third phase started after the election of the UPFA government in April 2004. Now our private media is impatiently fulfilling their social responsibility in pressurising the government to honour the pledges it gave the people in its election manifesto. Our media has started to criticise or give more publicity to the criticism of the Opposition on what the government has not done. The date of giving appointments to unemployed graduates has become more important than the decision and the process that has already been started. Fertilizer subsidy and reduction of the price of urea by Rs. 200 has become insufficient to politicians who completely cut the subsidy as well as to the media which did not talk a word about it then. The manner of arrest of corrupt ministers is highlighted in the media while the corruption itself is kept aside. In all fronts political, social, economic, foreign policy etc. there are many positive changes that society expected for two to three decades but our media has not identified them but prevented some elements identifying them. This is the background that we have to identify. If we assume that our private media is independent or not controlled by any political agenda then the thinking of removing government control over the public media is fair. But it is very clear that it is not the truth. All private media have its own political agenda. That is the agenda of Capital behind those media institutions. In Sri Lanka that Capital is not of our farmers, government servants or ordinary people. All those institutions are owned and operated by a few capitalists of the country and they always represent the major capitalist party of our country. Therefore under this environment the government needs the media to communicate with the people who have given it a mandate. New proposal The new proposal and move of the Opposition parties to hand over the state media institutions to an independent commission is also a debatable topic. Those who are pioneering the proposals have already shown their political ties to the public and there is no secret that some leaders of FMM, NGOs and opinion makers promoting this represent the UNP political agenda of toppling the 'minority' UPFA government as soon as possible. At the same time the fate of independent commissions on which people had high expectations as tools of a true democratic society has not left room for people to believe that an independent media commission will be different to them. There are disputes in appointing the Elections Commission. The Bribery and Corruption Commission is inactive. Decisions of the Police Commission have created a fresh crisis creating problems in maintaining law and order and governing the country. All those are political implications of practices of our private media. What is the social and cultural impact of our private TV channels? What is the developing FM culture of our private radio channels? Have they understood their social responsibility? Do the people of this country agree with these media practices? It is said that we are in a society that an independent person can hardly be found even among retired Supreme Court judges. It is very clear that all the slogans in our political arena do not reflect the needs of our people. They reflect the politics of our capitalists. - Vigilante |
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