Sri Lanka media lacks pre-disaster reporting skills
View(s):The Rathupaswala protests over a drinking water pollution crisis in which three persons including two students were shot dead in Army shooting could have been preempted if there was early reporting by the media on the issues, research has shown. The above comment was made by Prof. Lakshman R. Piyadasa, Head, Dept of Mass Communication, Kelaniya University while addressing a workshop on ‘Media Sensitivity in Emergency Response and Disaster Risk Reduction’ held in Colombo last week. He said that this showed that there was no discussion or early warning in the mass media on an impending disaster.
The research showed that only in one newspaper there was a letter on the issue by a reader. Going back to the 1971 insurgency, he said that there was no pre-warning creating a discussion between the policy makers and the society though youth prepared for this uprising in 1965 conducting training camps in jungles. He said that the newspapers did not go beyond the official media releases during the incident and pointed out that the whole gamut of media response in disaster reporting would influence contemporary politics, the sale, marketing promotion and the attractive emotional writings. He questioned the behaviour of the media as there was no analytical investigation by the media after this man-made disaster.
Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, Head, LIRNEasia indicated that with the modern technology there are improved communication systems developed to reach the disaster victims and the importance of early warning systems and how to reach the victims in a disaster was felt since 2005, after the tsunami. He said that though the Sri Lankan community is strong in helping disaster victims even out-doing the government though it’s the state’s primary responsibility, this country is weak in preventing disasters. Prof. Samarajiva pointed out that Bangladesh provides an example in preventing or minimising damage and pre-warning.
He said that country experienced major cyclones in three occasions, since 1970 and in the first cyclone there were around 400,000 deaths. But after 37 years the cyclone death toll is very much less, he asserted. He also cited an example in Sri Lanka too in minimising losses in life and property as far back as 1978 when there was a major disaster in the East. At that time, he said though Sri Lanka had only one electronic channel – radio only – the entire process was managed in a single ‘news room’. He said that with the information reaching through radio, the Government Agent at that time and the police evacuated most of the people from the disaster site.
He pointed out that in comparison to the tsunami the number of people displaced were the same but the deaths during the cyclone was 900 while during the tsunami the death toll was a massive 32,000. Prof Samarajiva stressed that pre-warning disaster management is the sole responsibility of the government and it should take appropriate decisions. He said that one example was the landslide at Meriyabedde where there were pre-warnings for the people to leave disaster prone areas. Residents didn’t move out because they were trying to defy death but for the simple reason that they did not have an alternate place to move out.
When Dr. Ranga Kalansooriya, Director General at the Information Department began addressing the media, it was apparently a blame game and he went to the extent of changing the age old tag for media as the ‘Watchdog’ to that of a hungry dog sniffing muck until it finds something to wallow and to prevent the search of muck they should be given something to munch, which was an insulting comment. He said media channels are greatly influenced by the profit motive and whether these media channels are owned by the government sector or the private sector their agendas are heavily influenced by the marketability potential of the news item and how far it could sustain in the agenda to yield profit.
At the outset he distanced from media and said that his present duty is to be the government’s chief propagandist. He said that the media personnel should take time to understand the disaster. He said that the media has a capacity issue and questioned the competency and the training in handling disaster reporting. He pointed out that when the mass media delays the information dissemination to the public, the social media picks up and in that there could more disinformation than information. He said: “Me PR agency walata kiyanawa me badaginne inna ballo wagei jaathiyak. Kanna dhenna monawahari. Ethakota kai. Neththang kunu bakki awussanawa.” Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Minister of Disaster Management, chaired the seminar. (QP)