Media At It, And At Media
Over time, people will remember only the Government leaders’ condemnation of the media. They would not either remember, or want to remember and recall context or purpose. It’s where all campaigns in support of ‘media freedom’ begin, now as in the past. It’s where the real problem would begin. At that stage, the media and the public at large would assume that the Government was out to suffocate media freedom. They otherwise would continue to wonder as to where they had gone wrong in advising and cautioning the media to be free, but fair.
by N. Sathiya MoorthyNews paper printing press
( February 21, 2016, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) It’s anybody’s guess why former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has taken his time, targeting his successor-government on the question of ‘media freedom’. Maybe, it also signals the next phase in his fight with the back to the wall, where he would be spared nothing and he could spare nothing.
It was Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who launched the new government’s early criticism of the nation’s media, both print and electronic. Having relied more on the ‘social media’ than the traditional forms in a way, he could afford to take on the nation’s ‘media moghuls’ in a way.
In particular, the PM has named the names of some national dailies more than once, as the villains of the piece – and of, national peace and harmony.
Yet, it was surprising that President Maithripala Sirisena should be referring to sections of the media abusing the freedom granted to them, by law and also practice – that too, in his National Day address. Possibly, it was unprecedented. Yet, unlike PM Ranil Wickremesinghe, who warned of action if they failed to behave, Sirisena only advised the media that any future government could ‘again curtail’ the same, if they abused it now.
It’s not that PM Wickremesinghe has been making sweeping attacks on the nation’s media. He has only been telling them not to whip up racism and other ills back into the Sri Lankan society, which is still recovering from the decades of ethnic dispute, war and violence – and may take many more years before restoring ‘normalcy’, whatever be.
