Daily News Editorial

The media and its travails

30 November 2016

Media freedom and threats to the media figured prominently in parliament on Monday when the subject came up for discussion at the Committee Stage debate on the media of Budget 2017. Attacks were also directed at Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for allegedly making comments that were perceived as being threats to certain media institutions and editors, by the JVP and members of the Joint Opposition.

The Premier countered these with the argument that he was only verbally responding to the material that appeared in the media and never resorted to physical attacks on journalists or burning down media institutions.

The reference of course is to the many physical attacks on media personnel and the burning down of the Sirasa studios and the destruction of the Siyatha television station. Perhaps, the blackest episode in the persecution of media personnel was the killing of Sunday Leader Founder Editor Lasantha Wickrametunga. It is being sought to be implied in certain quarters that the investigation into the Lasantha murder is being hushed up today. Little thought is being given to the fact that no investigation, whatever, was carried out into the murder, when the individual who is implied to be behind the killing was within the Rajapaksa fold. Wickrametunga was killed in January 2009 and a full six years elapsed before the government changed. Why was no investigation carried out, except for dragging on the matter with endless court appearances that got nobody anywhere?

True, the UNP gave out the name of the alleged mastermind in parliament as has been mentioned right along. But why wasn't the matter being pursued with during those six years? Why wasn't the then Chief Opposition Whip not asked for any information in his possession implicating the name that was being mentioned?

Be that as it may, the media and media personnel were persecuted under all governments since 1970. The murder of journalist and human rights activist Richard de Soysa was the most horrendous incident that cast a gloom on the then UNP government, which was rightly or wrongly, accused of being behind the incident, while many journalists came under physical attack, with columnist Taraki killed and his body discovered near parliament, under the watch of the Chandrika government.

Attacks on journalists were turned into a fine art under Mahinda Rajapaksa, beginning with the Rupavahini incident, where a rambunctious politician, who was then the pet of the Rajapaksas, stormed the state run television station to manhandle a programmes officer for omitting a speech of the politician that vilified an opponent. The incident was not without a sequel, with some female journalists attached to Rupavahini being slashed with razors while traveling in public transport, by the goons of the politician in question, who was himself manhandled by the employees of the television station, for his trouble.

What followed thereafter was a journalists’ nightmare, when scribes were abducted in the notorious white vans, to be roughed up and tortured, for rubbing on the wrong side of the administration,.with the murders of Lasantha and Prageeth Ekneligoda capping up things for the leaders of a regime that portrayed themselves as being friends of the media.

Not just governments, but non state actors too harassed and persecuted the media in this country. The LTTE killed many media personnel in the North, who did not toe the line, and attacked media houses, for the same reason.

JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake was vociferous in his attack on the government, for what he claimed was media suppression.

The JVP is hardly in a position to speak about media freedom and harassment of the media by governments, having threatened newscasters of the state run TV channels with death, if they failed to desist from reading news, during the outfit's second bloody uprising in 1989-90. That was a time when journalists feared to live in their own homes and sought refuge in the homes of strangers. An intrepid TV personality defied the threat, only to be shot dead in front of his residence in cold blood. Premakeerthi De Alwis is his name.

Hence the media has come to be the whipping boy of all comers. It is not just in Sri Lanka. In the recent US Presidential Election, the media that was seen to be partial towards Hillary Clinton came under scathing attacks from Donald Trump, while in more repressive regimes journalists have to undergo severe ordeals and have even paid the ultimate price for their efforts to inform the public. The situation in Sri Lanka, where media freedom is concerned, has not come to such a sorry pass - at least with the regime change in January 8, though there is scope for improvement.