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MEDIA-SRI LANKA: New Media – First With Reports On Intensifying War

Amantha Perera

COLOMBO, Feb 4 2008 (IPS) - Information is at a premium in Sri Lanka, especially authentic, unadulterated news, fast and quick.

With the government and Tamil Tigers militants again waging full-blown battles in the country&#39s north, and the rest of the country beset with fear of unprovoked attacks, Sri Lankans are turning increasingly to non-traditional news and information outlets. The mainstream media is increasingly handicapped by the tense security situation.

One of the first with the news of a Sri Lankan air raid on the hideout of Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was JNW, a text message-based news alert service launched in April 2006. "Air Force spokesman says jets bomb LTTE hideout in Kalmadukulam, Iranamadu around 11.15am, adding intelligence believes Prabhakaran was present," subscribers got to read on their mobile phones on Jan. 23.

Chamath Ariyadasa told IPS he set up JNW as an experiment to find out whether an SMS (short message service) news service would be viable. "It has caught on reasonably well and now a lot of people feel that it is easy, hassle free, and timely," he added.

The SMS service is available on two mobile networks in Sri Lanka, and recently, it commenced news dissemination on two others on a trial basis. "The challenge (always) is to encapsulate a breaking story in 160 characters," said Ariyadasa.

When JNW was launched, there were informal, information sharing networks over mobile phones, especially among journalists. After every incident in the intensifying war between the government and Tamil rebels the phones lines are congested with everyone relying on getting the latest by phone.

Credibility has been a commitment with JNW, asserted Ariyadasa. "SMS&#39s can travel really fast and wide. We have to be extra cautious on sourcing," he said about the network&#39s news-gathering ethics. According to the JNW website, every story is verified by three sources and sourced when transmitted.

The government also understands the chaos SMS based rumours can create. In fact during the country’s 60 Independence celebrations mobile operators were requested to discontinue SMS service for six hours between 6 am and 12 noon by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. The fear was that rumours could create mass panic.

The governments fear is understandable given that sourcing is not high on the priority list of most blogs and independent websites covering news and current affairs that have cropped up recently in Sri Lanka.

Lankaenews has carved a niche among the upstart websites due to its quick news gathering and dissemination in Sinhala (Sri Lanka&#39s main language together with Tamil). "I think the fact the we operate in Sinhala opened up a huge untapped audience, the Sinhala-speaking internet users who don&#39t have a high proficiency in English," Lankaenews founder, Sadaruwan Seenadira, told IPS.

He told IPS that his site gets about 100,000 visits every day, a third of these are regulars. "What made the news website workable was that we developed an HTML based Sinhala font," Seenadira said.

Others who have ventured into the new media aver that they are delivering content that might be missing in the traditional media. "It can be a foil to what is out there," said Sanjana Hattotuwa, the editor of Groundviews, a Sri Lankan website that has pioneered &#39citizen journalism&#39.

"It is a very participatory role that the audience plays and we have heard from the likes of Dayan Jayathileke (Sri Lanka&#39a permanent representative to the UN in Geneva) to a 20 year old from the Tamil diaspora reacting," Hattotuwa told IPS.

The websites and blogs encourage reader participation which is used as a barometre of their popularity. JNW has a special section on its site where it includes SMS reactions from clients and others. Lankaenews is also planning an open forum and chat rooms for its visitors. "The next step for us is to allow our readers to discuss the stories and news right there on the site," Lankaenews&#39 Seenadira said.

Hattotuwa also feels that Groundviews deals with issues that have been under-reported in the print media. "I haven&#39t seen good coverage of the IDP (internally displaced peoples) situation in the mainstream, at least nothing substantial in the last two years. Whereas we have regular contributions from the north-east that include the IDP issues among others," he boasted.

New technology has allowed these content providers to cut across traditional barriers that have limited news penetration in Sri Lanka, in the past.

"It (internet) is something like a social leveler. Anybody who has access can get the news anytime, anywhere and all you need is a mobile phone or an internet connection," explained JNW&#39s Ariyadasa. Interestingly the week that the network was launched, the tenuous cease-fire between the military and rebels seemed about to break with a Tamil Tiger assassination attack on the army commander, Lt. Gen. Sarath Fonseka, inside the barricaded Army Headquarters in Colombo, on Apr. 25, 2006.

Despite their popularity, none of the new media organisations have been able to show profits, even JNW, which has been functioning as a commercial venture since its launch.

Ariyadasa does not hesitate to admit that the going has been tough financially in the last two years. Lankaenews&#39 Seenadira said: "We get a lot hits but still if we were to run it on the advertising revenue, we might have to close everything, it is still not that much."