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Consequent to this column yesterday, last week's issue of the 'Ravaya' newspaper has reached our hands which makes the absurd situation relating to the UNP's appeal to the IGP to ensure balanced coverage of the elections on the part of the state media look even more grotesque. According to this newspaper, the UNP wants the IGP to take into custody the heads of these media institutions and file cases against them for violating the 17th amendment to the Constitution.

As we pointed out yesterday as well all these absurdities and grotesqueries could have been avoided if the Elections Commission had been put in place. In the absence of such a mechanism neither the Commissioner of Elections nor the IGP or any other panjandrum for that matter enjoys the power to call the shots. This is clearly evident from the refusal of newspaper owners and administrators of all descriptions to adhere to the Elections Commissioner's guidelines on covering the campaign.

As for the broadcast media something could have been retrieved if the Broadcasting Authority Bill which was proposed by the late Dharmasiri Senanayake when he was Minister of Media, Tourism and Civil Aviation had been implemented. Admittedly there were flaws in that Bill which led to it being shot down in flames by the Supreme Court but what must be borne in mind is that media owners were in principle opposed to the very concept of regulation.

It was the same with the 17th amendment which also contained certain provisions for the regulation of newspapers during election time. Again a concerted campaign by newspaper owners and editors led to those provisions being struck off.

Being newspaper people ourselves we are no advocates of censorship but the point is that if the media is to be balanced during the time of an election some kind of guidelines become necessary since it is clear that they are not ready to regulate themselves. A recent newspaper advertisement by that UNP Lone Ranger Milinda Moragoda struck an elegiac note for a lost era where a former Director General of Broadcasting Tilak Gooneratne had delayed a broadcast by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake because it had contained some partisan party political material. Those days are lost and gone for ever and no number of brave promises by Mr. Moragoda or anybody else are going to bring them back.

The point is to work with the present unpromising reality. Whether state or privately-owned, whether administered by public corporations run by people in neckties or private companies run by mudalalis in lounge suits, the media, both print and electronic, have their own vested interests and their own agendas. The first requirement is to admit that fact.

The second is to establish some institutional mechanism through appropriate legislation to ensure that there is at least a modicum of objectivity in the covering of an election campaign on their part. Perhaps it was too blatant on the part of the 17th amendment which had to be abandoned to have called upon the media to declare their particular allegiances at an election time although some western newspapers do so voluntarily but some such mechanism will become necessary to check the present charade.

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