Rajpal's Column

9th July 2000

That important right for the press to be naughty

By Rajpal Abeynayake

The press also occupies the center of the discourse when an election is around the corner. For most members of government, the problem of the press has been greater than the problem posed by Prabhakaran, and this can be assessed by maintaining a file on media statements made by some of the government's top point- men in Cabinet.

The press has naturally been self - conscious in this sort of environment. The Editors Guild has announced the existence of a self- regulatory regimen for the Sri Lankan newspapers, the first time a document of this nature has come from within the media establishment. The regimen, which is subject to review, covers a gamut of issues ranging from conflict of interests to general reporting and writing issues.

"Newspapermen are mischief makers,'' mused a participant at a recent media seminar organized by the Center for Policy Alternatives. Those who want to barbecue journalists and other media men, will be disappointed to know that the connotation of this statement was a positive one. Newspapermen are mischief makers said this academic who was here from — I think South Africa — and it's a good thing too, he says.

Makers of mischief want to stir the pot, create waves, to be iconoclasts of all sorts. But, in the process they unearth tings that society would scarcely want to believe in — until these things are proved in the print pages.

The problem with it is that mischief makers, particularly the variety who truly enjoy making mischief, are not necessarily looked at kindly by the average god fearing citizen. But, that should not deter mischief makers, because the mischief they make can be quite valuable to society on the long term - particularly for the god fearing citizens.

But obviously mischief making cannot, being as it is necessarily an irreverent pursuit, be done in a sanitized manner. There is no such thing as entirely good mischief.

Which is why, in a necessarily mischievous environment, there should be some sort of regulation to ensure that the bad boys — and girls — don't get too bad — don't get so mischievous that the rest of society including good people can't have a good nights sleep.

Hence, we have the libel laws, the press council, all of that which is supposed to keep the media watchdogs under some kind of scrutiny. But, the business of being irreverent/ mischievous has too many ramifications, and many of the self - regulatory mechanisms of the press which have emerged in various countries, seem to have been directly related to this realization.

The Article 7 of the Code of Professional Ethics that is proposed here, is probably a good indicator of the fact that the press cannot be staid, that it has to be vibrant — but not necessarily politically correct. This Article says that the "press shall strive to represent social reality in all its diversity complexity and plurality, and shall strive to recognize the sensitivities of women children minorities the under privileged and differently abled persons.''

True, this section is replete with euphemisms. But the spirit of it is that it recognizes in some ways the contradictions that inhere in good journalism. For instance, saying that one has to "recognize the sensitivities'' of the under - privileged, makes it pretty clear that the under - privileged are part of the agenda of a free press.

When the press promotes the rights of the under privileged, the poor or the underclasses, it's necessarily going to mean that a lot of toes are going to be trod on.

There is no way that all these toes are going to be trod on, if the press is going to be clinical sanitized and politically correct. In other words, the press has to be quite mischievous.

In this context at least, the regulatory regimen is the absolute minimum set of rules that a journalistic dispensation, a newspaper for instance, has to adhere to.

The need for a press to be politically correct not only makes a newspaper boring staid and insipid, it is also, far more importantly, not right for any society. Political - correctness makes newspapermen more nervous, and therefore less mischievous. It puts a wet cloth on irreverence, which means that society will have less people treading on the toes of the privileged, for instance, on behalf of the underprivileged, for instance….

Though already there may be a little too much political correctness that's written into the new Sri Lankan Code of Conduct for Journalists, it is good that the Code of Conduct does not get into the absurd levels that the French journalists reportedly have to contend with. ( French photographers, are reportedly forbidden to take photographs of crowd scenes, as a persons identity can be sued for — which is under some sort of absurd protection due to an exaggerated notion of intellectual property rights.)

The right to privacy is overridden by the legitimate public interest, says the new Code, an exception that again is an assertion that newspapermen are going to be mischievous. Thank heaven for that.

"Statutory controls would undermine the freedom of the press - and would not be so successful in raising standards. The Council recognises that, in a country like Australia with no express guarantee of freedom of speech, or of the press, a tort of privacy would be unworkable and may lead to an unacceptable infringement on press freedom. It would be of potential use only to the rich and powerful who would be prepared to use the Courts to enforce their rights - and would be misused by the corrupt to stop newspapers from reporting in the public interest. Self regulation has none of the problems of the law - yet still provides a system in which publications are committed to the highest possible ethical standards.'' ( That's from the Australian self regulatory body's statement of principles. The emphasis is mine.)

In Australia too, a Complaints Commission oversees the self regulatory regimen and this commission will impose sanctions on the errant.

.That's what is envisaged here as well; but what's important is that that the corrupt and interested parties will not be able to stop newspapers from reporting in the public interest. Translation: journalists CAN continue to be mischievous.

Correction

The article "No Clout at all in the National Discourse'', in last week's Sunday Times contained one inadvertent error. Shantha Henanayake was referred to as Prassanna Henanayake in this article, due to a typographical error.

The error is regretted.

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