Thoughts form London

If Lake House newspapers are to fulfil the task that parties in power expect them to do, that is to win public support for themselves and their policies, it cannot be done by stifling journalistic freedom to the extent that the slightest whiff of criticism of the head of state or his/her government is perceived as an act of treason for which editors lose their own heads.

This is a confession but a minor one that does not require an appearance at a confessional. Perhaps I should call it an explanation for that is what it is, really.

I had intended to write this week about a conference on climate change and disaster management strategies that I attended on behalf of the Commonwealth Press Union to present a paper and make a case for close media participation in any future planning in these areas.

However, when I returned from the idyllic islands of the Seychelles, lying southwest of Sri Lanka, one of the emails awaiting me was from a former journalist who I respect for his professionalism and his enlightened vision that made him a good editor.That was the first time I knew that the editor of the Sunday Observer had been removed for writing about President Rajapaksa’s pep talk to our heads of diplomatic missions earlier this month.

As the former editor wrote, my column on that same Sunday was “sharp and hard” compared to Rajpal Abeynayake’s mild rebuke that President Rajapaksa’s homily to our envoys abroad should have been one to unite all state forces against the advocates of violent division than the chastisement he meted out to the diplomats.

The former editor felt that in different circumstances it was I who would have been “jousting” with the Lake House management rather than Abeynayake.

Then early last week a former colleague of mine at Lake House wrote in saying “aren’t you glad you didn’t land that job as editor Sunday Observer”?

Besides warming my heart enormously, the allusions made by both of them need some explanation especially because politicians who speak vociferously of press freedom when out of office do not always practise it when in office.

It all began early this year when I was offered the editorship of the Sunday Observer and I was asked to come to Colombo to discuss it. I had planned to pass through Colombo in early February on my way to Japan but it was suggested that I come down as soon as possible which I did.President Rajapaksa had asked me to telephone him immediately I arrive which also I did.

When I spoke to the president he wanted me to meet the Media Minister and said he would ask the minister to contact me and arrange a meeting.

Well I did meet up with the Media Minister at his office. The offer of the Sunday Observer and more was made.

I told the minister I would need a fairly free hand if I was to take up the job, that I would be answerable to the president since past experience at Lake House had taught me that ministers, MPs and even party hacks try to interfere in editorial decision making, sometimes dictating what should be written.

To ignore the ‘diktats’ of every interfering political clown in town or even to make critical remarks is to run the risk of being accused of being anti-government as happened to me on several occasions when I was even attacked at cabinet meetings both during Mrs Bandaranaike’s premiership and JR Jayewardene’s presidency.

One a then cabinet minister, whose name I will not mention for the moment, wanted my head but fortunately President Jayewardene stood by me, not for political but for journalistic reasons. Shortly after the cabinet meeting I was informed by some ministers of what happened in that sanctum sanctorum.

Under President Premadasa, who was then engaged in trying to tame JVP anarchy, the situation got infinitely worse with soldiers posted inside Lake House and all sorts of shenanigans with some so-called journalists running to Buddhist monks to ensure their survival while others turned even more sycophantic.

At that point I quit to take up a newspaper offer in Hong Kong.

That is why when I met Media Minister Yapa I wanted to sort out the rules of engagement from the very start and ensure that journalism would not be entirely subjugated to political expediency.

The minister said that this is what they too wanted and that he was meeting the president later in the afternoon and would convey this and some other matters I raised.

But I was almost certain from his demeanour, or in popular parlance, body language, it would not materialise. So it turned out to be and it had nothing to do with the salary as the story was later spun out.

But before I left for Colombo I had sought advice from former colleagues and friends who were highly sceptical about the government granting a fair degree of editorial freedom that, I said, I intended asking for.

What has happened to Rajpal Abeynayake has not only fortified the initial scepticism of my journalist colleagues with long experience at Lake House but also my own cynicism about politicians in general.

In my time at post-take over Lake House I’ve seen editors come and go that made such a mockery of the press freedom that politicians regularly mouth like some sacred mantra but observe in the breach because they cannot stomach even the mildest criticism.

Politicians in power and those around them that are nurtured and protected, have extended to themselves the law of infallibility. So like the age-old British convention that the king can do no wrong, politicians in power have covered themselves with this mantle of infallibility.

There are several reasons why state-controlled media, particularly Lake House with a long tradition behind it, need that element of journalistic freedom and a breath of fresh air to remove musty political thinking.

The naked truth is that state controlled media lack credibility in the public eye. They may make money because state advertising in particular, sustains them. But there is an ever widening chasm between buying a newspaper for its advertisements and reading it for its editorial content and being convinced by it.

Even if politicians in power understand this, they do not want to allow that journalistic latitude that would improve quality and credibility. And without gaining public credibility all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put a political humpty dumpty’s reputation together again.

What is it that presidents and governments want of the state media? Do they want the public to believe (or at least not to derisively dismiss) what they read, hear or view on state media? Or do they want to protect themselves from criticism and permit only praise with a daily dose of sycophantic peroration from political torch bearers masquerading as journalists.

What has happened to some of the most respected newspapers in the country, which several decades ago, were held out by teachers of English to their students as examples to follow, are today badly written, badly edited and to be discarded.

In the bad old days of Soviet communism there was a joke doing the rounds that Pravda (truth) and no truth and Izvestia (news) had no news.

Some might say some state media lack both.

Why, because over the years competent editors and journalists have been dismissed or shunted to innocuous positions and the newspapers handed over to political pandang karayas with the only requirement that they serve their masters without demur.

Increasingly these once respected newspapers have fallen into the laps of those whose claim to journalistic competence and vision is as non-existent as the equator.

Today, it is a celebration of mediocrity. Unless politicians in power and their advisers, of which there seems to be no lack, wake up to the fact that they are doing themselves and the nation a disservice, they too will end up in the dust heap of history.