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| Friday, 26 March 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| Private TV stations making mockery of rules United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) sources yesterday charged that private television stations were guilty of making a mockery of rules of fair play during election period by refusing to telecast a TV commercial that dealt with facts on the murder of Vijaya Kumaratunga, husband of President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. Sources said the television commercial was in response to an anonymous advertisement telecast by the same private television stations in malicious disregard of the facts with intent to disparage the President on the issue. They said the counter advertisement which the private televisions stations refused to telecast was based on an authentic published document, a Presidential Commission of Inquiry report that inquired and reported back on the assassination of Vijaya Kumaratunga with references cited from the report. The UPFA is of the view that the actions of the private television stations was a total disregard of the guidelines set by the Polls Chief that applied to both State and private media. "The issue of who to believe and whom not to, is for the people to decide. In a democracy, for the people to be able to decide, we must allow a free flow of authentic information. The media is expected to play that role. For the media to play that role, it must play by the rules that apply evenly to all," they said. "We have seen parts of the private media persist with a bias against the Freedom Alliance in its treatment of news. We have also seen the private media apply an unfair spin to the interpretation of facts. We have witnessed the same media deny a proportionate editorial space and time to the Freedom Alliance. Now we see it insisting on a right to block communications which are not only paid-for but which seek to put the records straight by focusing on the findings of a published report of a Commission of Inquiry," the sources queried. "By doing so these private media stations are acting in total disregard of the guidelines issued by the Commissioner of Elections which applies to both the state and private electronic media and which has as its basis fairness in the reporting of news during the election period and access to both sides to television space and time. In the present case, once again the private electronic media has chosen to shut out the facts relating to an issue which they themselves brought into the public domain at this point in time in the first instance presumably on full payment from their clients whoever they may be," the UPFA sources said. Privately owned television stations are regrettably guilty of making a mockery of the rules of fair play during an election period. They raise an issue and they do not permit a reply. All this they do, while they still pretend to be neutral and non-partisan, they pointed out. "They have no credible excuse for not telecasting the advertisement based on the report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the assassination of Mr. Vijaya Kumaratunga," the sources said. |
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