MEDIA MATTERS: Time for an independent press?

Photo Courtesy of http://indi.ca/

Sevanti Ninan - With the re-election of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka, many will be watching to see what his next term will mean for the government's policy towards private media. The persecution of the Sri Lankan media has been a long-running international story, particularly after the killing in January last year of Lasantha Wickramatunga, the editor of the Sunday Leader. Several journalists fled to seek asylum in the West, and an expatriate group called Journalists for Democracy has helped to keep Western media attention focused on the vulnerability of journalists in Sri Lanka.

Organisations such as Reporters Without Borders have been putting out releases in the run-up to election day, alleging on the day of the polls that news websites were being blocked. Even though one managed to access an allegedly blocked website, the story was that the servers were blocked so that further material could not be uploaded.

Propagandist programmes

The elections saw State-owned media, both print and television, run news favouring the incumbent, and devote most of the coverage to him. When the State media runs propagandist programmes in that country, it seems to be a real issue, because they are more watched than our State media are. And in the subcontinent, Sri Lanka is possibly the only country to have State-owned newspapers.

Al Jazeera's Listening Post reported in its last programme before the Sri Lankan elections that President Rajapaksa had greeting the country's entire population on New Year's Day through an sms. The State's communication commission had apparently ordered telecom companies to send out that message free. The programme also reported what it suggested was extended misuse of the State media during the poll campaign. It did not quote anybody in government on what they thought of the media's reporting in Sri Lanka, whereas Indian observers, both here and in Colombo, say that there is also a real problem of partisan media in Sri Lanka. J.S. Tissainayagam, who was sentenced to a 20-year jail term on charges of “supporting terrorism and inciting racial hatred in his articles”, became an international cause celebre, but was let out on bail a few days ago. Like him, several other Tamil journalists have been accused by the government of being pro-LTTE, over the years. But it is not only Tamil journalists that the government has targeted. As many as 34 scribes and media workers, both Tamil and Sinhala, have been killed in recent years.

What sort of climate for media coverage will be created during the President's next tenure? Will those who fled be able to come back and practise their profession? Or will Sri Lanka continue to remain a media hot spot for some time to come, is what we have to wait and see.

(This column is being written on the afternoon of January 27.)

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