A MEDIA READER ON SRI LANKA
The Sunday Times,
Columbo
August 5, 2001
GOVT,
EDITORS TO DRAFT CHARTER ON WAR REPORTING
The
Government and The Editors Guild have agreed to formulate a charter that would
provide a set of guidelines to govern future reporting of the on-going
separatist insurgency in place of censorship on military related news.
This
decision was taken on Wednesday at a meeting chaired by Defence Secretary
Chandrananda deSilva and attended by a delegation of the Editors Guild, Media
Ministry Secretary Janadasa Peiris, Information Director Ariya Rubesinghe,
Additional Defence Secretary W.A.S. Perera and Military Spokesman Sarath
Karunaratne.
The
main aim of the charter is to define areas of national interest, military
concerns and the public`s right to information. This will take into
consideration military-media relations in theatres of conflict in other parts
of the world, particularly in the backdrop of revolutionary changes in
communications technology. These changes have made media censorship an obsolete
practice which is no longer enforceable, states a news release by The Guild.
A
three-member committee was appointed at this meeting at the Defence Ministry to
draw up this charter. The committee which comprises the Director-General
(Media) Presidential Secretariat, the Military spokesman and the President of
The Guild is to base the charter on the set of guidelines on military-media
relations already made available to the Government and the Military by The
Guild.
The
committee report on the charter is to be made available in the next two weeks.
In July last year, ten members of The Editors Guild challenged the imposition
of a censorship on military related news under Emergency Regulations in the
Supreme Court. The Guild members argued that the operation of the censorship
did not serve the national interest and was only suppressing the publication of
military failures, fraudulent arms procurements and news which were generally
an embarrassment to the Government.
The
Supreme Court advised the Government to formulate some guidelines with the
Editors Guild in reporting the northern insurgency.
The
government in June withdrew the censorship.
The Island, Sunday
edition
12 August, 2001
ARMY
NEW WEBSITE POPULAR
Sri Lanka Army announced that its newly launched Website,
within just eight
months of its inception, has fetched well over 600 surfers daily on average.
The figure fluctuates and is always on the increase.