{"id":106532,"date":"2013-09-22T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T18:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=106532"},"modified":"2013-09-24T01:48:06","modified_gmt":"2013-09-23T20:18:06","slug":"lasantha-had-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/lasantha-had-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"Lasantha Had Courage"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Greetings to the organizers and my fellow panelists.\u00a0 I participate with the full knowledge that the organizers have been at the receiving end of criticism from all quarters, those I consider friends and those who would consider me adversary.\u00a0 I am aware, also, that friends and colleagues though my fellow panelists are, they roughly fall into a single camp. I am an outsider, in that sense.\u00a0 But I believe, still, that our commonalities outweigh our differences.<\/p>\n

Media has a role in all societies. Media can be effective in a positive way and it can be destructive and divisive too.\u00a0 The pen, to use the old metaphor, is not always innocent.\u00a0 Pens are frequently agenda-driven and used in defense and in attack, by governments and those opposed to governments, those who want to protect regime and those who want regime-change, those who prop systems and those who wish system-change.\u00a0 It would lovely indeed if media was always pro-people, but in the real world media says \u2018pro-people\u2019 but by omission and commission act in ways that go against popular sentiment.\u00a0\u00a0 Self-righteousness is cheap.\u00a0 Self-reflection, self-criticism, expensive.<\/p>\n

Let us talk about media and Sri Lanka.\u00a0 It is not the best of times, ladies and gentlemen, let me assure you this.\u00a0 My fellow panelists will elaborate on this, I am sure.\u00a0 We can do an enumeration exercise but I think it is better to touch on the issues that are too often skirted around, again for politico-ideological reasons.<\/p>\n

It is not the worst of times either.\u00a0 We\u2019ve lived through worse.\u00a0 That however is no consolation.\u00a0 All it means is that we can get better.\u00a0 Today, however, technology has provided us instruments that can best the most pernicious of censorship mechanisms.\u00a0 We must understand, however, that technology can be used and abused and that technology can both minimize realities as well as inflate falsehoods.\u00a0 That kind of truth-cooking is not the preserve of governments.\u00a0 Indeed spin and twist can be off-shored and this happens frequently too.<\/p>\n

Governments are made of politicians. Politicians are about power, wanting power, wanting to retain power, fear of losing power.\u00a0 Such people are wary of criticism.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t help when criticism is selective, partial, mischievous and agenda-driven. That is no excuse for censorship or stifling of media freedom.\u00a0 I firmly believe that while freedom of expression is eminently open to abuse to the point that it can trigger outcomes that are bloody and ultimately antithetical to the larger interests of the citizenry, it is a better proposition than its suppression.<\/p>\n

In Sri Lanka, there is state media and there is private media.\u00a0 Then there is the internet and social media where self-regulation, ethics, responsibility, balance and other things we speak of when we talk about the media are nice to have but rarely obtained.\u00a0\u00a0 In Sri Lanka, private media is not politically neutral.\u00a0 Major media houses are owned by people close to the President.\u00a0 Others are owned by people whose political loyalties lie elsewhere. It is the same when it comes to news and comment based websites.\u00a0 Everyone will try to claim neutrality, but few really are.<\/p>\n

We all work within parameters of ideological orientation, institutional policy, outcome-preference and so on.\u00a0\u00a0 I am sure my fellow panelists would not disagree.\u00a0 So how do we become better? How do we ensure that what we do is about truth and not about slant?\u00a0 How do we obtain integrity?<\/p>\n

We are constrained by the fears, arrogance, self-righteousness and readiness to silence of Governments, state agencies, state officials, our bosses in private media stations (owners and editors included) and by our own preferences \u2013 the outcomes we work towards and the preferences for individuals, organizations and ideologies.\u00a0 Let us accept this reality.<\/p>\n

We can talk past one another, we can be self-indulgent, navel-gaze, be selective and opt for monologues.\u00a0 We can dialogue too.\u00a0 We can protest, wave banners, carry placards, organize and participate in marches, submit petitions.\u00a0 We can take the risks of becoming pawns.\u00a0 We may win some, but we may also lose.\u00a0 We can also write. We can speak. We can be the media.<\/p>\n

I believe that the challenge is not to find ways of improving the relationship between government and media, but to do our jobs to the best of our ability.\u00a0 The trick is not to limit ourselves to lamenting and screaming about the fact that we operate within parameters but finding ways to operate at the perimeters of constraint and push those limits outwards.<\/p>\n

If things are to get better \u2013 and I believe they can \u2013 then we have to privilege certain things.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a list.<\/p>\n

Courage.\u00a0 Honesty \u2013 and this means being open about biases and preferences and a conscious decision not to pretend to be neutral.\u00a0 Creativity \u2013 for there\u2019s always a way around and through censorship.\u00a0 Humility \u2013 because we are never perfect.\u00a0 Lasantha, who we are remembering here, was creative. Lasantha had courage.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n

Note – Re-posted after the event<\/p>\n

Note – This content is removed upon request by Malinda; we will re-post tonight after the event is done’.<\/p>\n

*Malinda’s presentation to the\u00a0Sri Lankans Without Borders (SLWB) event on\u00a0the Lasantha Wickrematunge Memorial Lecture.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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