Oh, these publicity mad hacks

Giving journalists a bad name

| by Pearl Thevanayagam

(July 18, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Threats to journalists in Sri lanka are not the prerogative of the Rajapaksa government. Journalists considered it part of their job to expect abusive anonymous telephone calls ranging from bringing one's parentage into question to serious death threats, politicians threatening to get the management to sack them and of course the surveillance by the NIB guys in black Oxford shoes usually 'employed' inside Lake House in its various administrative departments. Then there is the usual hand-written anonymous letters delivered by post or hand.

Receiving a threat is akin to receiving a degree in journalism in that it means you have arrived. It means you are somebody to reckon with and you are a serious journalist. And in the last decade or so, it is also a ticket to get political asylum in a foreign land. Sonali Samarasinghe is riding high in the US at the expense of her husband of just two weeks, Lasantha Wickrematunga, who was brutally slain in broad daylight for his exposure of corrupt politicians, screaming human rights into the willing ears of American media. That she never set foot in the war zone is not known to her benefactors. And she is enjoying freebie scholarship advancing her prospects and touted as a champion of media freedom. Aung Su Kyi should take a back seat.

Ditto for Sunanda Deshapriya, Nadarajah Guruparan et al who were never persecuted in Sri Lanka in the first place. Another journalist who arrived in the UK with his extended family and his claim to asylum fame is that Gotabhaya had threatened him. Sunanda fiddled FMM (Free Media Movement) funds not unlike Lucien Rajakarunanayake, the first convenor of FMM who stashed away US funds meant for FMM, and Guruparan had two different dates for his white van abduction and refused to be interviewed either by the BBC or CNN when he was invited by EJN (Exiled Journalists' Network) UK to give testimony.

Both of these hacks' expenses were paid for by the said group. This writer ( founder member and secretary of EJN)had to return without these hacks at the airport since they had already arrived at the expense of other foreign media champion groups and yet had the audacity to claim expenses from the impoverished EJN.

Did anyone hear Iqbal Athas giving interviews about the many threats he received and he is someone who was treading dangerously on the corns of government henchmen. And Iqbal is a fearless and courageous journalist and an internationally acclaimed one at that.

Guruparan claimed 60 Pounds Sterling in taxi fare whereas tube ride would not have cost him more than 10 Sterling Pounds!!! He also claimed 40 pounds for internet use.

Compare these scoundrels to those genuine journalists such as Nimalarajan, BBc stringer in the North Keerthi de Alwis, Richard de Soysa, Lasantha Wickrematunga, Sivaram alias Taraki, and 34 other media personnel who were killed in the call of duty.

Gone are the days when journalists kept a very low profile. Independent newspapers did not give you a byline until you have served 12 months. Now you have photos accompanying a piddling article and it is no wonder that you are pursued with the vengeance of the Police Chief in Les Miserables.

Gotabhaya does not need NIB; all he needs is a cutting from the newspaper to dog and attack a journalist who gives him adverse publicity. Journalists in Sri Lanka do not need degrees to follow their profession but their egos surpass even those of NASA experts and scientists of the highest discipline. When will they ever learn. One you are sacked or relieved of your duty at a media organisation your are simply a nobody. You are back to square one where you were a shop assistant or an English tutor.

 ( he writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California and a print journalist for 22 years. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)