{"id":45978,"date":"2015-07-21T20:14:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-22T02:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=45978"},"modified":"2015-07-21T12:28:06","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T19:28:06","slug":"media-and-election-policy-statement-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/07\/21\/media-and-election-policy-statement-coverage\/","title":{"rendered":"Media and Election Policy Statement coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tissa Gunatilaka from Sydney<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

In democracy elections are considered as the cornerstone activity. Nations destiny can be changed with the choice of people via elections. Leaders will be replaced, new leaders will be appointed, new policies will be implemented through elections, therefore elections are considered as the point where people take the control of the nation.<\/p>\n

In order to exercise their choice people should know where candidates and parties stand on public policy issues that steer nations into the future. The mass media takes the responsibility for providing this wisdom where people are be equipped with information about the public policy issues. The media has the burden of reporting comprehensively and truthfully what the candidates for office are stand for during the election time. Unless this duty, which is the key task of the media, is not appropriately fulfilled the meaning of the election is lost at its initiation.<\/p>\n

On the other hand the media has a power of misguiding the people by not providing balance coverage on public policy issues announced by candidates during the election.\u00a0 People depend on the mass media (newspapers, television etc.) for the updates where such announcements are day to day affairs during the election.<\/p>\n

The respective media also has their political views on public policies due to which the coverage may not be entirely pure or independent.\u00a0 They pump views over the broadcast according to their political alignment which clouds the \u2018image\u2019 comes to the people where the ability to steer the nation\u2019s future actually lies. Some journalists and media they represent select the information to be reported based on their political biasness instead of reporting the actual policy statements made by the candidates.<\/p>\n

The media coverage for Mahinda Rajapakse\u2019s (MR) policy statements made on the stage is less than satisfactory. The significant policy statement regarding the economy where tea, rubber and paddy cultivators are guaranteed a record return for their products was not adequately covered in the media except by \u2018Rivira\u2019.\u00a0 MR promised Rs.90 per kg of tea, Rs 350-380 for kg of rubber and a guaranteed minimum wage for government service as at Rs 25,000 per month. The present media situation does not provide a level playing field for both candidates or UNP and the collation.<\/p>\n

People have right to know what they vote for especially what policies main candidates offer them. Therefore, it is the prime responsibility of the media to provide information as they come (in timely manner) from both directions with equal coverage.<\/p>\n

Some media provides high quality images and audio for the coverage of one candidate or his party but with poor picture and audio quality for the other in the same news bulletin. This kind of media manipulations laughs at the people\u2019s power which supposed to be supreme at any event.<\/p>\n

Subha Pathum<\/p>\n

Tissa Gunatilaka from Sydney<\/p>\n

21st July 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tissa Gunatilaka from Sydney In democracy elections are considered as the cornerstone activity. Nations destiny can be changed with the choice of people via elections. Leaders will be replaced, new leaders will be appointed, new policies will be implemented through elections, therefore elections are considered as the point where people take the control of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}