Whither Sri Lanka’s media?
Groundviews
Having been through the grind in the field of Sri Lanka’s mainstream print journalism for nearly two decades, what I feel is a growing sense of frustration. Whatever standards and respectability that was maintained by our past peers are deteriorating to the extent that journalists are being looked at, more with ridicule, than with esteem. Today journalists have come to be often identified as so and so’s catcher or hanger on other than men and women of integrity and fair play. The failure to do some serious soul searching by those of us in the media fraternity has led to this situation.
Journalists, who are so good at turning the search light outwards and preaching to all and sundry on what is right and what is wrong, rarely turn the search light inwards. We do a lot of finger pointing but rarely realize that more fingers are being pointed in our direction than ever before.
Most journalists lack understanding of their responsibility towards society and the need to be on the side of the people and not on the side of the high and mighty whose opinions are forced down people’s throats day and night in a media driven frenzy.
If your run through the front page of a newspaper or listen to the radio or watch television news, 70 per cent of its news content will be parroting out what a politician, an official, a businessman or sportsman has said somewhere. It’s true what some of these people say is important but the absurdities that are circulated as “NEWS” today provide only cheap entertainment and contribute zero towards stimulating people’s intellect. The other news that is reported is what is spat out by official spokespersons of different organizations. The end result is that media personnel have been reduced to the level of hangers on of politicians, officials, businessmen etc., hungrily devouring the information they are fed, which they in turn disseminate to the public. The most basic ethics of journalism, the need to do their work impartially, accurately and in a fair manner is forgotten.
