Channel 4 and media responsibility

The Channel 4 film which is highly damaging to and damnatory of Sri Lanka helps focus on media issues which at best have been addressed by the international community in the past only cursorily and superficially. Even at the risk of sounding jaded and clichetic, we need to say that the Channel 4 controversy raises the issue of the 'freedom of the wild ass' and its attendant risks.

These have remained unresolved questions in the debate over media freedom and responsibility. The older members of the reading public would probably remember the debate of the mid-seventies in particular centering on the New International Information Order (NIIO), which was zealously mooted by sections of the developing world. This visionary concept had the staunch backing of crucial Third World forums, such as, the Non-aligned Movement. The NIIO and the New International Economic Order (NIEO) were twin concepts which broached some of the most urgently felt needs of the developing countries. Together they set the agenda for Third World debates on how the existing global political and economic order could be changed and moulded to further the legitimate interests of the poor and powerless of the world.

Come the mid-seventies and economic liberalization and these visionary concepts of the poor seem to fall by the wayside. With the zealous espousal of the market economy by almost all sections of the world community, not only economic justice but the glaring imbalances in the flow, distribution and coverage of news the world over seem to have been thrust into the Limbo of forgotten things.

In fact, economic justice and the need for a new information order, which would ensure fair coverage of Third World issues, are closely interlinked. It is to the degree to which the poor and the powerless have a commanding grip over the economic wealth and resources of the world that they could ensure fairer and more balanced representation of their affairs and of their point of view in the international media. This battle was never fought with any great zeal by the poor and as a result of this and on account of the powerless falling for the market system, today the Third World is not in a position to challenge the monopolistic control the wealthy West exercises over the international media industry. As a result, the powerless are fighting a losing battle against the West on the question of a fairer deal on information dissemination, coverage of its issues and kindred questions.

One could argue that with the triumph of market economics over the past 30 years, the less powerful of the world are in an even more helpless position with regard to having their voices heard and their point of view projected through the international media which are, of course, mainly, Western-controlled. These are the considerations that need to be taken into account when discussing and analyzing the issues growing out of the Channel 4 scandal which has badly seared Sri Lanka.

While there is no denying that the poor and the powerless were always in a relatively feeble position with regard to having their affairs covered in a balanced manner in the world media ever since the mass media became a force to be reckoned with in the modern world, the situation is even more bleak today, with market considerations having a greater say in the running of the Western and transnational media. What matters today are 'stories' that would sell and earn the largest number of consumers and bucks.

Accordingly, a horror story allegedly from Sri Lanka would prove a 'good sell' among the entertainment- starved sections of the West and organizations such as Channel 4 would only be too glad to fill this breach in media thrills. A Third World sensational tale on the lines of the fictional narrative from the conflict-ridden parts of Sri Lanka is the heady stuff the generality of viewers from the consumerist sections of the world would love to feed on. Hence, the Channel 4 concoction on Sri Lanka, which is so damaging to the latter.

Here is a very glaring example of the 'freedom of the wild ass.' With nary a care for Sri Lanka's national interest but only with an eye on the stacks of greenbacks which would come from more and more entertainment-starved viewers lapping up the sordid scenes on their screens, Channel 4 has, with a dangerous but only to be expected nonchalance, thrown scruples to the wind and dished out their horror story on Sri Lanka. How then could the West dare preach to the rest about accountability and the like? Does not the ruthless dispensing of falsehoods amount to making short work of everything that is held sacred by democracies? We therefore tell Channel 4 and the powers behind it: rein-in your 'wild ass' impulses before you dare preach to the world. How could you, who cannot control your greed for pelf, tell the world that restraint and responsibility is best?