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Mangala’s media

The days when the Wijewardenes owned and ran Lake House and maintained an iron clad rule that the owners will not publicise themselves via the medium of their newspapers changed after the 1973 nationalisation, if we may use the word, of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd. (ANCL). What was done was really not a nationalisation in the strict sense of the word. The majority shares of the company were divested from the old owners and vested in the hands of the Public Trustee.

Although it may have been naively supposed or more probably deliberately contrived to imply that this would mean that the Lake House newspapers will maintain a fair balance, that was soon demonstrated to be far from reality. The political commissars took over on behalf of their masters and the group’s newspapers were used first by the blues (remember it was the United Front coalition of the SLFP, LSSP and CP that was responsible for the takeover), later by the greens and once again by the blues today as blatant organs of their own propaganda.

The reds had little say, then or now, on how Lake House was run. The dominant SLFP kept tight control of the company and its papers and excluded its leftist allies from influencing the direction of the government controlled press. Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike was effectively in control of ANCL between 1973 and 1977, sometimes abdicating part of that power to Mr. Felix Dias Bandaranaike. Old Lake House hands will remember that when the LSSP was ejected from the United Front, FDB called many of the shots on how that story was to be handled.

The J.R. Jayewardene and Premadasa years saw a continuation of this tradition of the head of government largely controlling the political direction of the Lake House newspapers. The promised divestment of the company from government hands remained as empty and hollow as ever. There has been one change in the way Lake House is run since Chandrika Kumaratunga was elected to office. The media minister has been in charge of the institution unlike under previous dispensations.

Sir John Kotelawela, in his pithy inimitable way is once reputed to have said: "While the spoon is in your hand, serve yourself." It sounded much better in the original Sinhalese: "Handa athey thiyanakang bedaganilla." So it has come to pass that once media ministers came into the picture, of running both Lake House and in the more glamorous television channels controlled by the government, these ministers, whoever they be, have got more coverage than their colleagues elsewhere. The naked fact is that whoever is incumbent in the media portfolio gets an unequal share of publicity from the state controlled media. We do not know whether they are ladling the gravy on to their own plates in the manner suggested by Sir John or whether sycophants in the various institutions in their charge are demonstrating that they are more loyal than the Queen. Probably a mix of both.

Thus it was a matter of little surprise that Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s discourse on the government’s commitment "to a bipartisan media policy that will stand the test of time" was given a mighty splash in the front page of Thursday’s Daily News. It began with the homily that it is this government that has restored media freedom "after nearly two decades of horrendous and extra-legal suppression of the media." Hear, hear. Predictably there is no mention of the solemn promise that Lake House will be divested from government control enshrined in the manifesto of the People’s Alliance. It is clear that this administration is not going to keep that promise and those of us with fairly long memories will remember that Samaraweera himself went on record saying just that soon after he took over the media mantle from the affable Dharmasiri Senanayake.

The working press will be happy about Samaraweera’s reiteration about government’s commitment to a bipartisan media policy that will "stand the test of time." Even the faithful will not (or cannot) accept even in their wildest flights of imagination that the media Samaraweera runs for the state acts in a bipartisan manner. Even constituents of the ruling alliance, most recently Rauf Hakeem, general secretary of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) went on record at an executive committee meeting of the PA that the way in which the state media was used to bash the private media was "appalling." Mangala Samaraweera was there at that meeting. If there was a response to Hakeem, it has not been reported up to now.

The fact is the parliamentary select committee examining media law reforms has long been dragging its feet. It is years since the R.K.W. Goonasekera Committee made a substantial report on required media reforms. The select committee, chaired by none other than Samaraweera himself, meets infrequently and some of its meetings had to be abandoned for want of quorum. When the Editors Guild appeared before that committee, Samaraweera was not there and Prof. G. L. Peiris had to chair the session. The media minister turned up after the discussion had ended.

Now Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe’s motion on media law reforms, signed by eight other MPs including Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Srimani Athulathmudali from the government side, has been postponed for October from August. We have Samaraweera’s assurance that the select committee proceedings will be hurried up. Let us all hope that all this will come to pass and along with the much needed media law reforms that the state media will also be fairly used by those in power calling the shots. This media, after all, is the people’s property and not some politician’s inheritance.

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