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| Sunday, 25 July 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Some issues of media unfreedom Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake The cry goes out across the land for the umpteenth time: the media must be freed. That Big Bad Ogre, the State Media, must be tamed if not defanged and the monster with three heads - Lake House, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation - must be brought to its knees.
A coyly touching picture as painted by the Opposition and in particular by its principal component, the UNP, but can a wave of the magic wand cure us of our ills, both real and supposed? It is true that for over three decades now, State radio, television and Lake House have been controlled and sometimes abused by all Governments which have been in power, but can adjustments in their managements alone bring about media freedom? What of the much larger privately-owned media which is responsible only to the dictates of the market place? But most importantly, for a real media freedom to be brought about, should not there be a major act of social engineering which orientates all sections associated with the media to the larger ideals of a liberal political and social culture? Old hands in the media (a steadily dwindling tribe) might recall a time when Radio Ceylon (as it then was) was largely free of party politics. The news broadcasts for example offered listeners factual news rather than the opinions of politicians. The late M. J. Perera who was for long its Director General once recalled how on a rare occasion the news broadcast had reported a speech by the then Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake attacking his critics. The then Second MP for Colombo Central, the late Pieter Keuneman had raised the matter in Parliament and the Prime Minister had not only apologised but also directed the authorities never to repeat the mistake. Even today, if one cares to read the Rupavahini and Broadcasting Corporation Acts, one will find that the Acts require that any directions of a political nature given to these two agencies have to be given in writing by the Minister concerned. But that is a dead letter and under every administration in recent memory, these two broadcasting outlets have been Government tools. Taxpayers' money The criticism of the Government control of radio and television is, of course, based on the fact that these are run on the taxpayers' money (although it is conveniently forgotten that licences are no longer needed for them), but what of the private media? These newspapers, radio channels and television stations are only responsible to their owners who form a miniscule part of the big bourgeoisie spawned by the market economy and the prevalent consumerist lifestyle. Their sympathies are more often than not with the class that they represent and particularly on the mirror of television what we often see is a warped and distorted reflection of a vulgar urban lifestyle which these channels would like to foist on the generality of the people. The news values and agendas of these institutions are determined by the views of urban politicians and other such opinion-makers and one hardly gets a glimpse of the thinking of the vast mass of the people in the countryside except for those obligatory clips on the news telecasts of a badly damaged road or culvert in a village or garbage heaps in a suburban town. Without addressing ourselves to this question of ownership of the media by a microscopic minority of often interlocking families, it would be futile to talk of media freedom. Changing the managements of the State-owned media institutions therefore can at best be only a partial solution. The near paralysis of the Bribery, Police and Election Commissions, the installation of which we were once told would bring about a new era of liberal democracy, demonstrates that our civil society or what passes for it is unable to rise to the expectations invested in it. In Western liberal democracies, civil society which is constituted of professionals, academics, men of letters and other such independent men of opinion acts as a powerful deterrent to the abuses and misuses of the Leviathan State. In Sri Lanka, however, uneven social development has ensured that people at all levels should look up to the state for deliverance. Sri Lanka does not even have a robust entrepreneurial capitalist class but only a mercantile class caught up in buying and selling. Both the professionals as well as the academics are in the main little more than pliant tools of this or that political party, interest group or lobby. The universities have lost whatever independence they once had and are being fast converted into machines serving the interests of big business. In such a context, it would be an illusion to believe that men of stature and integrity, capable of manning all these high-powered commissions, would suddenly spring up. Worthwhile civil society Perhaps because of the size of the country, the metropolitan nature of our society or the incestuousness of our elite, Sri Lanka has not been able to throw up any worthwhile civil society. Most civil society groups, professional associations and NGOs are therefore manned practically by the same set of people. It is quite common for one person to hold office in more than one such association. It is these inward-looking interlocked civil society groups which come up with agendas for media reforms or other fashionable causes and these are gratefully taken up by political parties who themselves are largely bankrupt of ideas. Any history of media reforms in Sri Lanka will show that these have been consistently opposed by the big newspaper companies and their powerful owners down the years. The Press Commission appointed by Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike's first Government, the Newspaper Corporation Bill which she unsuccessfully tried to bring about (and which finally led to her Government being defeated in what was later proved to be a parliamentary coup planned by newspaper owners), the successful move to establish a Press Council by her second Government and the broadbasing of Lake House were all stoutly opposed by these vested interests. The intention of all these moves by the Government was to break the monopoly over the press (there was no private radio or television then) wielded by just three newspaper houses. It is ironic that these same vested interests now in the new guise of liberal democratic champions of press freedom are in the vanguard of the present crusade for media reforms. Today although there is a proliferation of press, radio and television, the monopoly has become if at all tighter. All four privately-owned newspapers virtually belong to four families. Two privately owned television stations are family-owned while the other is controlled by a powerful corporation. This kind of family or corporate ownership of the media by the upper bourgeoisie can only lead to the asphyxiation of free opinion rather than its opposite. Multifarious commissions What has happened today is that the zealous votaries of Free Media are seeking to impose an agenda borrowed from the advanced capitalist societies of the west on Sri Lanka. This agenda sees Third World Governments as essentially evil and in need of control by enlightened western opinion. Hence the need for all these multifarious Commissions composed of greying men in business suits who alone supposedly can impose some kind of discipline on governments gone berserk. But what is forgotten is that at least the Government-managed media institutions are answerable to Parliament while the private media is only responsible to its masters. The irony, however, is that in these same enlightened centres of liberal democratic opinion, there is a strong sense of opposition among the more advanced social democratic sections against the monopoly wielded by the big barons such as Rupert Murdoch over the media. This is why it is important that any democratisation of the mass media in countries such as Sri Lanka should embrace and encompass not only the Big Bad Ogre of the State Media but also the Big Bad Barons of the Private Sector as well. |
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| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
All this under the brave banner of a Free Media which is supposed to
miraculously reside only in the Great Private Sector and this time the
chosen magic wand is the Constitutional Council. If the Council is given
the powers to make its own appointments to the three-headed monster, hey
presto, the media will be free.
