Some of the coverage by the western media of recent developments in Sri Lanka reminds me of the words of the ancient Roman philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero in his First Oration.
In English the Latin words translate into “what times, what customs.” They are not only apposite but provide an unintended pun for one of the worst perpetrators of journalistic chicanery which is “The Times” of London. This old lady of Fleet Street was banished years ago to a wharf area of London which seems appropriate enough given that its journalism today would make even the stories of hardened ancient mariners sound plausible and true. I might be imbued with a little Latin and less Greek, as Shakespeare said. Unfortunately that is not enough to add a few words of Latin words to expand “what times” into “what bloody awful journalism this is, Times”, the only euphemism I can think of right now to convey my thought on the kind of reporting displayed by this venerable old newspaper in recent weeks. I refer in particular to the quality of journalism produced by Catherine Philp, the paper’s diplomatic correspondent and Jeremy Page, its South Asia correspondent.
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I might have even let this pass without comment because decades in this business have taught us that what happens almost every day is not news. What prompted this comment however was an email I received late last week which seemed to copy a news report. What arrested my attention was the headline: “Srilanka expelled from 20/20 tournament.” We are among the few teams that play the game like it was intended to be played by those who started it but have since abandoned the spirit of the game to indulge in other more lucrative and nefarious activities.
Naturally curious I read the opening lines. “The result of the Sri Lanka-Australia 20/20 Match,” it said, “was declared null and void by the ICC last night and Sri Lanka has been expelled from the tournament. This was the result of a super piece of investigative journalism carried out by myself and our Asia Correspondent Jeremy Page.” Quickly I glanced at the source of this rubbish. It was said to have been written by Catherene Phillipa of London Times.
Obviously it was a hilarious take-off on an absurd story written by Catherine Philp that the Sri Lankan forces killed 20,000 civilians in the last couple of days of the war that saw the LTTE leadership eliminated. “We have seen some aerial photographs taken over the Trent Bridge grounds during the match. Thanks to some independent analysts in the Times basement toilet, I have clear evidence that Sri Lankan players spread 20,000 nails on the pitch to hurt Pontin’s boys.” The satire was spread far and wide taking in British Foreign Secretary Miliband, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navy Pillay.
The whole piece is worth reproducing but the lack of space does not allow that. But somebody should, at least to recognize the work of this anonymous writer who has taken the mickey out of the Times and its journalistic duo whose reportage of Sri Lanka epitomizes myth-making by Philp and personal pique by Page. The previous custodian of the Holy Scripts of Times journalism on Sri Lanka was Marie Colvin who after being found by the UK Press Complaints Commission to have been biased and inaccurate in her coverage of Sri Lanka went on recently to report that 1000 amputees were lying on a beach in Mullaitivu unattended to and uncared for.
Colvin, writing from London must either have the vision of the fictional character Superman. Or she had found somebody who went around counting amputees who were apparently conveniently laid out on the beach to be counted by a person who had all the time in the world and cared little about personal safety. If Marie Colvin could find less than vestigial evidence for her allegations, colleague Philp’s attempts at prosecutorial portentousness by waving pictures around would convince few who study them and her report carefully.
Philp’s ‘evidence’ is based on “confidential UN documents, the testimony of witnesses who lived through the bombardment and expert analysis of photographs that were taken on a helicopter flight over the no-fire zone attested to the death of thousands of Tamils.” |
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