A presentation based on media monitoring of MSM coverage of key issues related to Sri Lanka's war and peace.

1. Media behaviour
in Sri Lanka
Sanjana Hattotuwa
Senior Researcher, CPA
Editor, Groundviews

3. Media consumption
During war

4. Choice?
• Increase in number of private FM and TV
channels
• Narrowing range of programming. No PSM.
Mostly commercial.
• Little or no regional / provincial emphases
• Little or no sustainable local media

5. Community media
Compelling examples of community radio:
…
Compelling examples of professional
provincial journalism:
…

6. Skewed reporting
From during the war

7. Legal impediments
Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited Law No 28 of 1973
Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation Act No 37 of 1966 (SLBC Act)
Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation Act No 6 of 1982
Sri Lanka Press Council Law No 5 of 1973
Official Secrets Act No 32 of 1955
Public Security Ordinance No 25 of 1947
Prevention of Terrorism Act No 48 of 1979 (PTA)

8. Advocacy and training
Free Media Movement (FMM)
Editors Guild of Sri Lanka
The Newspaper (Publishers) Society
Federation of Media Employees Trade Union (FMETU)
Sri Lanka Working Journalists Association (SLWJA)
Sri Lanka Tamil Media Alliance
Sri Lanka Muslim Media Forum
Sri Lanka Press Institute
Sri Lanka College of Journalism

9. Challenges
FMM, SLWJA, FMETU mired in corruption
and controversy. Internal splinter groups. No
traction.
Editors Guild splintered.
PCC largely ineffective. SLPI and SLCJ are
good ideas, but no human resources. Standards
are questionable.

10. Challenges
Advocacy anchored to a few individuals. No real
movement amongst journalists, who are themselves
divided.
FOE, media freedom advocacy are in opposition to
national security.
No new media based or English language advocacy
capacity.
Campaigns largely limited to street demonstrations,
occasional Sinhala press releases (that few media now
carry)

11. Dinosaurs and
demons
Rajapakse regime
Owners and editors are hugely resistant to
change and riven by bias and parochialism
No FOE. No RTI. High self-censorship. Little
professionalism. No idea what to report post-
war.

12. Prabhakaran’s death
Sinhala media was triumphalist and mixed
opinion with reporting.
Tamil media much less so, choosing instead to
quote government sources on Prabhakaran’s
killing.
English print media in between these two
extremes, save for Lake House papers.

13. Prabhakaran’s death
Sinhala media
Sinhala media portrayed it as a victory for
Sinhalese, praised armed forces, deified
President, Defence Secretary and key army
personnel.
Kept referring to acts of terrorism by LTTE as
justification for the killing of Prabhakaran.

14. UTHR (Jaffna) media
monitoring
The following story from the Army carried in the Daily Mirror of 19th
May (slightly edited) is the first of the constantly changing official
versions of what happened on the 18th morning:
“A group of nearly 100 LTTE cadres believed to include LTTE leader
Prabhakaran and senior leaders including intelligence chief Pottu Amman and
Soosai infiltrated the army’s forward defence line and reportedly attacked the
ambulance. The driver and two critically injured soldiers however
managed to escape. Later, some of the LTTE leaders reportedly got into
the ambulance and attempted to escape through Puthukudiyirruppu. The
Special Forces attacked the ambulance which caught fire. A fierce gun
battle lasting over an hour resulted in more than 250 bodies of LTTE cadres
lying scattered. The Defence Establishment believed that all top LTTE leaders,
including Prabhakaran, were killed during the abortive escape attempt on the
18th morning.”

15. UTHR (Jaffna) media
monitoring
“The story about the leaders trying to escape in an
ambulance was dropped the next day. The defence
columns of the following Sunday carried the uniform
version, that Pulidevan and Nadesan who attempted
to surrender, died allegedly in the fighting described
above. This clumsy attempt at lying creates the
suspicion that many of the cadres killed that
morning were massacred like those with Nadesan
and Pulidevan.”

16. Prabhakaran’s death
Tamil media
Quotes government sources over killing, but
also quotes Indian and international sources
that Prabhakaran is still alive.
More attention on civilian deaths.
The language used to refer to / describe
Prabhakaran suggest he was a freedom fighter.

17. Prabhakaran’s death
English media
Largely the same as Sinhala media save for
Daily Mirror, which was the most balanced in
its coverage.

18. Different foci
Sinhala and English media stressed that the
war was a “humanitarian mission”, or that it
was a “rescue operation” to free civilians.
Tamil media was more focussed on
humanitarian fall out of war, and consistently
quoted or pointed to international media
reports in this regard.

19. Photos
“In dealing with social issues of a particularly
shocking or emotionally painful nature – such
as atrocity, violence, drug abuse, brutality,
sadism, sexual salacity and obscenity – the
press should take special care to present facts,
opinions, photographs and graphics with due
sensitivity and discretion, subject to its duty to
publish in the public interest.” - Editors Guild
Code of Ethics

20. Photos

21. Sources
Overwhelming dependence of Sinhala and
English media on official government
information sources (e.g. Military spokesman,
MCNS)
Tamil media source more from international
reports, and frame local sources with plugs to,
for example, international wire reports.

22. Cartoons

23. Broadcast media
Key refrains in Sinhala coverage
Kuriru - brutal, referring to acts conducted by Prabhakaran
Gaathakaya - slayer / killer
Amaanushakaya - inhumane
Uththamachaarya - saluting war heroes
Abhiyogaya dinagattha - Overcome challenge of terrorism
Vijayakrahanaya - victory for entire nation (with nation often
portrayed as a Sinhala nation)

24. Key aspects of TV
broadcasts
Length of news bulletins was over one hour. Usually a shade under 30
minutes.
Visuals were anchored around:
Animated timeline of key moments leading up to Prabhakaran’s death
LTTE attack on Dalada Maligawa, civilians and Kattankudy Muslims
Visuals that showed that Prabhakaran did not have cyanide capsule
around his neck
Visuals that suggested Prabhakaran lived a life of luxury in seclusion,
betraying the cause of the LTTE.

25. Erased and edited
No coverage on fate of IDPs, civilians who
escaped the fighting, civilian casualties,
humanitarian fall out and enduring concerns,
human rights abuses.
Language used to repeatedly make the point
that Prabhakaran was a notorious criminal,
brutal murderer, killer, liar, cheat etc.

26. Flooding @ Menik
Camp

27. Flooding @ Menik
Camp
Groundviews broke story at 11.02pm on 14th August, when
it was still raining hard. Used Twitter for on the ground
eye-witness perspective.
First time CJ site has broken a major news story. First
time Twitter used as a source.
First photos, originally from mobile phone and digitally
up-scaled, go up at 8.16pm the next day.
Photos and story picked up by New York Times and BBC.

28. Flooding @ Menik
Until 16th August, local print, broadcast and
web media did not covering this story.
Only the Daily Mirror republished a BBC news
story.
No Government newspaper or TV station even
referred to the dire situation in Menik Camp
until 16th August.

29. Flooding @ Menik
16th August (Sunday)
48 hours after the devastating floods, Groundviews did not get even
a cursory report of the flooding in Menik Camp via any of the SMS
news services it is subscribed to, including JNW and Daily Mirror.
Only Uthayan on Saturday carried a news story on the situation in
Tamil.
Amongst the leading English Sunday newspapers, the Sunday
Observer, The Sunday Island and The Nation web versions do not
report the crisis in Menik Camp. The Sunday Times has a short
front page article. Only the Sunday Leader and Lakbima News
headline the situation. The Sunday Leader quotes Jeevan
Thiyagarajah, Head of the Consortium of Humanitarian Agencies.

30. Flooding @ Menik
Lakbima News notes in IDPs at drowning point
notes that “Minister of Resettlement, Rishard
Badhiyudeen, when contacted by this newspaper
over the phone for a comment, asked us to “call
back in 15 minutes”. But the minister remained
“un-reachable” since”.
News over KPs arrest and Police brutality
dominate Sinhala newspaper coverage on Sunday.
No mention of the dire conditions in Menik Camp
whatsoever.

31. 2 weeks after...

32. Tissa’s verdict
Very few from media advocacy community at
court on judgement day (31st August)
Guilty on three counts, 20 years rigorous
imprisonment. Unprecedented severity.
Largely unexpected in light of GSP+ extension
debates and context

33. Tissa’s verdict
1st September news
Island and Daily Mirror go with lead stories
Sudaroli, Virakesari, Thinnakaran, Thinnakkural
all lead stories
Dinamina and Divaina lead stories. Dinamina
follows story with anti-NGO coverage.
Lakbima and Lankadeepa front page stories

34. Tissa’s verdict
1st September Island coverage

35. The verdict’s impact
(Excerpt from Groundviews)
Salient points of Tissa’s case point to a larger and more
chilling deterioration of media freedom in Sri Lanka under
the Rajapakse administration.
The charges, the length of time he was held without any
charge and the manner in which he was treated while
imprisoned are all carefully engineered to generate fear and
anxiety amongst independent journalists and media.
In this, the Rajapakse regime has been tremendously
successful. Most journalists today are fearful of even writing
about Tissa’s case, much less writing publicly against his
unjust predicament or agitating for his quick release.

36. Future trends
1. Increasing media consumption post-war, especially in
the North and East
2. Fragmentation of audiences within and between
print, broadcast and online
3. Participatory media models
4.Younger consumers
5. Impact of broadband and mobiles will be significant
6. More censorship and intolerance of dissent

37. Mobiles vs. broadcast

38. Post-war media
control
Technically more difficult to hide censorship,
especially with new media
Physical threats can still contain and curtail
Investigative journalism shifting to web, also
means that one should expect more online
censorship and filtering (Iran and China are
close friends)

39. Groundviews reach
Over 2,000 read it daily on average
Over 530 Facebook fans, reaching ~53,000
persons (calculated at avg. 100 friends per fan)
Over 220 follow tweets
Over 9,000 get email updates at least
fortnightly

40. Groundviews reach

41. New ideas & new media

42. 2008 Colombo Declaration on
Media Freedom and Social
Responsibility
Section 10.3 of the revised Declaration deals with the Internet and
notes that,
“One of the most significant developments in the last ten years has
been the growth of the Internet, which has resulted in the
democratization of media and encouraged the emergence of non
professional journalists in the form of bloggers etc. We acknowledge
the contribution of bloggers towards the promotion of free speech
and democratic media. We also recognize that bloggers are as
susceptible to controls by the state, misuse of their work as
traditional print and broadcast media. We take this opportunity to
commit our support to responsible bloggers and other new media
practitioners, and hope to work with them in solidarity towards
establishing a convergent media which is strong and independent.”

43. 2008 Colombo Declaration on
Media Freedom and Social
Responsibility
Section 10.4 goes on to note that,
“We specifically call on the government to recognize the
internet as an important space for deliberative democracy,
and extend to it, all such policies as would enhance the space
of free speech on the Internet, and to avoid all policies of
banning, blocking, or censoring websites without reasonable
grounds. There is now a convergence between the traditional
print media and the internet, with a number of newspapers
being accessed through the internet, and we would strongly
urge that all the privileges and protections sought in this
declaration be extended to the web editions of newspapers.”

44. Thank you