Which comes first – Human Rights, Media or Terrorism?

Judging by his own standards and those laid down in public by his government, our incumbent President is Sri Lanka’s No. 1 “traitor”.

In branding those who champion human rights in Sri Lanka to be partial to the LTTE, we tend to forget that the President himself was an fervent champion of the very human rights he now holds in contempt when in the opposition over a number of years. I have explored this in earlier articles as well, but in this submission to Groundviews, I explore some fundamental problems facing the media today in Sri Lanka in reporting the on-going violence and conflict.

Professional media, I argue, can’t take sides and certainly can’t be shafted into a simplistic black and white paradigm of being in support of the Government or against the Government / with the LTTE. Professional media has a vital role to play in exploring ALL sides of the conflict, based on the inviolable right of the public to know the many facets of actions taken in their name and purportedly, in the interests of national security by their government elect.

This is why the media is called the Fourth Estate, which sees media as a public watchdog keeping a critical tab on government and governance. Clearly, as I’ve noted earlier, politicians are vaunt to change their ideas and opinions when in power and when in the opposition. By extension, as journalists, we need to explore the veracity of that which is portrayed as “Truth” and “Fact” by those in power, given a blatant record of duplicity.

Read my article in Sinhala here.