Media responsibility is to provide balanced information – President
President Maithripala Sirisena made an inspection visit to the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRC), yesterday (07).
The aim of this visit is to look into the activities of the TRC as it comes under the purview of the President.
Even though it comes under the purview of the President of the country since 2004 this is the first time that a President visited the TRC to inquire into its affairs.
The staff of the TRC warmly welcomed President Sirisena and expressed their appreciation for his visit to the TRC.
The President focused on the institutional structure of the TRC, during the discussion with the Board of Directors. He instructed to recruit qualified officers for the vacancies prevailing in the TRC.
“It is reported that some private television channels allocate 80% of their air time to criticize the government. They only give less than 20% of the time for acknowledging people about the development activities of the country and the policies of the government”, the President said.
“There is no problem of criticizing the government. But the media institutions have a responsibility to fulfill for the country by conveying fair and balanced information to the people”, he pointed out.
“It is not a task to alleviate the media, but to give the right to the people for a meaningful media usage”, the President added.
The officials made the President knowledgeable about the steps to amend the Telecommunication and Regulatory Act.
When the officials pointed out the issues arisen due to the VAT imposed on the telephone charges, the President stated he would make the arrangements to solve them.
The Chairman of the TRC and the Secretary to the President P. B. Abeykoon and senior officials also participated in this discussion.
(Government News Portal)
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It is the media backing that determines the outcome of any election and Sirirsena ought to acknowledge the fact. Without the media backing the future of Sirisena remaining in office is dubious. Ranil thinking may run contrary to Sirisena think for reasons known to ranil and not sirisena.
Long life to Yahapalanaya
The media should provide true information, the truth, nothing but the truth and NOT balance the information.
This President, like every other President and every other Politician, is smarting under media criticism.
These politicians do not understand how a Westminster democracy operates.
In the Westminster, there’s executive (President or Prime Minister), and executive branch (known as Cabinet), House of Representatives (for creating laws and approving Government Policy), Civil Service (no-partisan, implementing Government policy), and the judiciary.
Our politicians are actually, low level Civil Servants who implement Government Policy. They determine who gets jobs in Civil Service and who gets permission or licence to operate a business.
When a politician stoops down doing a low level Civil Servant’s job, they will be open to criticism.
The president, in this instance, visited the TRC and actually “interfered” in its operations by instructing the TRC on whom to recruit for jobs within the TRC and also interfered with TRC policy on allocation of time by private TV channels.
These are not a President’s job.
Dear Zama,
You may not be born or too young to know what happened in 1956. We were galloping at full speed with the Honourable Senanayakas and Kotalawela doing a fine job even winning a seat in the UNO and with the Lake House , its entire fleet of papers having almost a monopoly fully backing Rt. Hon. Sir John Kotalawala — was reduced to EIGHT Seats at the elections. And even recently, MR used the Lake House and the electronic media right in his favour . What happened? Our country is top in literacy and general education and a section of the media should not consider themselves as kingmakers.
As for the Truth only theory, it should be stated that the word truth is not always abstract. As an example let me consider the case of an half opened door. See I have used the words ‘ half opened ‘- someone else might say it is half closed. BOTH ARE RIGHT Aren’t we ? But we have used diametrically opposed words to describe the same incident. It is the way how you look at it.
Kotalawela was a military honored by the british and the French. He was studied in Cambridge. The privileges of being in the commonwealth was to be educated in the better universities and Cambridge was one
Kotalawala expected the party machine to bring them back to power, while banda was better organised and did appeal the rural electorate and the media (the news papers , radio) adressed the urbban folk.
MR took the rural electorate for granted and felt that UNP would as usual give a better deal. The electorate is politically naive and the gangstas that represent them are just as clueless and manipulated with propaganda that has no foundation. Very good example is the constitution which ranil thinks will give him power and influence and most likely his scheming will end up with him having absolute power. as is sirisena is a puppet
“MEDIA RESPONSIBILITY IS TO PROVIDE BALANCED INFORMATION – PRESIDENT”
Then the First thing the media should do is to stop giving publicity to the sound bites and ‘allegations’ the various ministers and the cabinet spokesman release to divert the attention away from the real issues, and promises given to the public.
For example, when the Panama Papers came out, how many ministers tried to suggest by talking to the media Rajapakshas names were on the list. If more examples required, it is only a matter of reading Rajitha Senaratne’s statements to the media.
NO we want unbalanced information. In a corrupted country like Sri Lanka balanced information is a joke. Even the judges are unbalanced.
the media and other not only should criticize but also give solutions so that its our country that will develop.