We report, You decide

I’d be surprised if I’m able to find a single person who hasn’t heard this line over the years. You haven’t? Shame on you… It’s the motto of the “news” broadcast of the “Peoples’ Channel”. Ok, let me stop waffling around. For those who don’t know, I’m talking about Sirasa news and if you are an ardent “Sirasa Fan”, this post is not for you.

I don’t know to what extent others will agree with me, but as far as I see, Sirasa news is just Sirasa TV’s prime means of promoting their channel and attacking their opponents: in short, it’s their way of raving that they are the best. I’ll be following up with the examples and how the general lineup of their news bulletin is organized hoping that you will verify it yourself (I report, you decide).

We all know how Sirasa is engaged in a never ending battle with two parliamentarians in Sri Lanka. Mervin Silva and Wimal Weerawansa. I think (I think) that as proportion, majority of the Sri Lankan people despise these two characters for what they are. Mervin is a joker (the one that keeps the government on their toes) and there are no words to describe Wimal’s endless screaming on stage. Anyway, Sirasa TV has used their news bulletin to good effect to strike back at these two parliamentarians. This battle between them and these two parliamentarians is the source of the first news item in almost all the news bulletins they have. I’m finding it difficult to remember a news bulletin in Sirasa that didn’t slash mud at these two. Either it’s a telephone conversation with the joker or a stupid statement of the screamer. It’s like a comic show. In fact nowadays if I ever change the channel to Sirasa, it’s only to crack me up after a long haul of work. And trust me; they really WILL crack you up.

When their daily dose of mud slashing is over (and a few rounds of advertisements), they turn into promoting their own group. The next news item is undoubtedly something about the superstar contest, an anniversary of one of their sister media stations or a similar deed relevant to their media empire. According to them, such “news” should get far more priority than for e.g. the important decisions of the government that day or the state of security during the last 24 hours.

Only after this bandwagon is over will they ever step into a little bit of real news. Even then they manage to find the trivial news bits from the least important issues of the country that are of little or no value to the people and to make a big deal of it. Not only that; in case of an important news item, they will just declare the news headline and ask us to watch the 10pm news for details. I mean, what the hell is that? They have all the time in the world to report if either Mervin or Wimal even farts, but they have no air time for the important things took place in the country that day??? (Their 8pm prime time news is limited to 15mins since they have to make way to the four heroines(thulsi, praveena, kavya and kindurangana) that rule their channel from 8.15 to 10.15pm).

Their latest addition; the breaking news segment in the middle of the day. I actually was tricked by them. You think that they are about to declare an urgent news item but NO, it’s just the same old teeny tiny gossip from a distant corner of the world, only with a new name attached to it; “Breaking News”. In another few years, people are going to loose their attention to “breaking news” as it becomes common place and part of the daily news routine. (Like the shepard boy who screamed about a tiger).

As far as I know, news is all about reporting something as it is. It’s the viewer’s job to decide upon that. Sirasa, although they have this idea explicitly mentioned everywhere (I forgot to mention the large number of cut-outs they display through out the country promoting their news; apparently the only media station that promotes news this way) act very contrarily to the same idea. They will give you what is “decided” by them and it’s a matter of people accepting it or not.

This is in no way to say that the rest of the media channels, especially the Rupavahini and the ITN are acting any better. They are so biased in their news bulletins and use them to good effect to butter the government. But at least they are still a long way away from becoming a comedy aired at 8.

If you are really to know what’s going on around the world, your only option is to look for something like CNN and BBC or to surf the net for independent news reporting. If you rely on the local news channels to report you the news around the country, you are pretty much left in a maze unless you are able to verify them with a number of other sources from elsewhere.