Journalism Awards – for a Country which has no journalists AT ALL!

THEY CALL THEMSELVES JOURNALISTS THOUGH

If you honestly think Sri Lanka is a Country which has journalists in 2016 think again. There are NO journalists, one could say with all honesty, could even call themselves journalists in this Country today.

The people who write today, either use hearsay, are paid to write, or propound their prejudices in their writing. Each one has an angle and the reader does not know if it is their angle or an angle they have been paid to promote! It does not matter!

Tell me of an objective journalist, who says it as it is, and checks and corroborates the facts not once but at least twice using different unrelated sources, and reports!

SO it is this lot who are going into SELF CONGRATULATORY MODE tomorrow night at a glittering evening at the Mount Lavinia Hotel to hand over awards for this and that, and you the reader be aware that it is NOT worth the price of the award that they receive.

http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=2016/08/01/local/89115

This is in contrast to the good old days of yore, where journalists were NOT influenced, or if they were they would actually point that out, rather than pretend to be someone they are NOT. Honesty is not something that comes easily to journalists who are taking it easy in finding a story, and don’t go to the lengths that Woodward and Bernstein did when they outed NIXON for his sins that ultimately led to his resignation in ignominy. They spew out balderdash and let it flow.

So where did we go wrong? The 4^th Estate which is Media, fell the same way as the Legislature of Sri Lanka, and for that matter the Judiciary, and Executive of the Rajapakse Presidency, and has NOT RECOVERED YET. Frankly, I don’t see it in recovery mode even now, with no one joining the profession for the true profession that it is. The only point I would like to make in favor of the profession, is that the proprietors, have NOT valued independence and objectivity in Journalism and were NOT prepared to pay the price to have good journalists in their stables. In that context our newspapers have suffered, and owners should be blamed.

Due to the poor education of the readership, which is unable to distinguish fact from fiction, the poor quality of journalism is not something anyone seems to care about, and certainly the politicians are grateful for, otherwise their bold transgression, especially the daylight robbery they undertake would not escape the notice of journalists and the Fourth Estate’s duty being to keep the other three from transgressing is NOT TAKING PLACE – woe betide Sri Lanka.