Malinga is wrong; Are you right, media?

It has often been seen in Advertising and Marketing, that he who shouts the loudest in media wins the consumer war, regardless of quality. It was Nazi propaganda Chief Joseph Goebbels who pointed out how fickle the truth can be: “If a lie is repeated publicly a hundred times, it will become a truth.” Needless of debate, media possess an enormous degree of power. How media influences the public is not the path this article intends to tread; instead, it seeks to highlight the significance of media and its existence as the fourth pillar of Democracy.

During the Russian Revolution in 1919, Leon Trotsky identified the Media, like the defence forces, as one of the key public institutions to take over, if the revolution was to be successful.

How lies are converted to truths purely through repetition, how media is used to paint beautiful stories over shameful events of the island’s revolution and how powerful conglomerates with billion-rupee marketing budgets influence media to refrain from reporting their malpractices are all but evident – particularly to the eye that sees beyond the obvious footage or the coloured print, and to the ear that has the capacity to hear beyond the crafty voice-overs.

Nevertheless, the lack of ethics and the lack of backbones have led the present day media industry in Sri Lanka to become propaganda tools of the affluent. When the Cabinet spokesperson mocks every question that’s hurled at him, when the ministers steal cameras of journalists, when journalists are assassinated in broad day light, when female parliamentarians are abused within the chamber, when ministers’ sons run riot; where have you been, you backboneless media? Where have you been, those of you who choose instead to hurl insults at Lasith Malinga on Facebook?

Let’s take a walk on the other side: Yelling at journalists is by no means acceptable, and no one should be entertained to behave in the manner in which Malinga behaved outside Sri Lanka Cricket headquarters. Despite the fact that Malinga is an accomplished international sports figure and a role model to many, let us ask ourselves - is this really the most burning issue of the country?

Back to reality: We are on the verge of being thrashed before the international community at the United Nations Human Rights Council. Sri Lanka is being picked on by every international media institution for alleged war crimes. Hatred is being spread in the name of religion and the country is on the border of another ethnic war. We are cursed with a budget deficit larger that our GDP and the common man is starving thanks to the skyrocketing price of goods; but of course, we choose instead to pick on Lasith Malinga – the most immediate need of the hour.

Even water flows DOWNSTREAM… should one be surprised when the otherwise still and sleeping media and ‘Facebook macho men’ jump at a player who can never make a comeback on the media? A player who has significantly less power as opposed to a politician?

Priorities are not something we ever got right as a country or a society. Judging by how that vehicle of democracy, Media, is steering society, I doubt the change is near.

Good luck fellow citizens, keep believing in the mainstream media. 

- Sunesh Rodrigo