The tasks of journalists are so strenuous when reporting during conflicts, riots and calamitous situations

In the month since May 9, journalists, especially those reporting the protests up close have had to take a reality check. 
Till then, many of them felt safe within the protesters. Some were candid enough to say that they identified themselves at least with what the protesters were demanding for. They also felt confident that if there was any impediment to their reporting that was not coming from the protesters. They were more concerned about state sponsored attacks and repression. This was a real fear given the experience between 2005 and 2015. A fear that had really scary examples. 

"Media was never looked up to as a profession of trust and public interest in Sri Lanka, despite the sacrifices journalists themselves have made. The public perception has always been that it is a thinly gloved outstretched hand working at the behest of political and financial masters"

That feeling of security was jolted and undermined on May 9, when several journalists were attacked, few held hostage and others verbally threatened by protesters. The trend has not been broken since. 
The big question mark was why the media was being targeted and targeted in such unmerciful ways. 

Why are we hated so much?

There is no easy answer to this. Journalism has always elicited widely extreme responses. You were either loved, hero worshiped or you were loathed like the plague. It was a question of not how professionally you approached your job and conducted your tasks, it was how the end product was assessed by your audience. 

During the war, as a journalist based in the South, but whose work concentrated on the conflict, my work was always a delicate affair.  I ventured into reporting the conflict almost by accident. When I began to work on ‘defence’, there were a few above me, up the pecking order in the editorial I worked in for such reporting. The defence beat was considered a prestigious one, closely guarded by those who were working on it. My initial reporting was about the civilian population that was caught up in the fighting. On that, there was very little reporting taking place when I started. 

"Journalism has always elicited widely extreme responses. You were either loved, hero worshiped or you were loathed like the plague. It was a question of not how professionally you approached your job and conducted your tasks, it was how the end product was assessed by your audience"

The reporting would elicit completely different reactions. Some would laud it for revealing details that they felt were important. Others would decry it as traitorous in the foulest of ways. 
The last thing anyone spoke of was the public’s right to be informed or my right to report. Given that there was no social media then and internet connectivity was dial-up and limited, I got these reactions either in person, in the mail or very rarely as an email. It was slow.

With social media this has turned inside out. The reporting is instantaneous as is the reactions. Many journalists still find it difficult to approach their social media postings as professional. Some tinge them with opinion, attitudes and slants while others overload them with that. 

Social media by its very functionality highlights the performative nature of their creators. It also encourages engagement. Journalists, bulk of them without awareness and training on using social media for their work find themselves in this perpetual dust cloud. Things become worse when you start hunting for clicks. Click bait works on extremes. 

"With social media this has turned inside out. The reporting is instantaneous as is the reactions. Many journalists still find it difficult to approach their social media postings as professional. Some tinge them with opinion, attitudes and slants while others overload them with that"

On top of all this, media was never looked up to as a profession of trust and public interest in Sri Lanka, despite the sacrifices journalists themselves have made. The public perception has always been that it is a thinly gloved outstretched hand working at the behest of political and financial masters. This antipathy towards journalists is nothing new in Sri Lanka. The only difference is how frequently they are manifested now and the digital payload of hate. 

Journalists can never be expected to lack conviction and bias. There has never been a totally objective reportage. Thought that has been for years the gold standard. Now with social media, the bias is part of the performative role, unless we are careful to keep it in check. It is our emotive biases that attract the clicks. 
But keep your biases transparent. Also, keep a note that as much as your biases are going to open doors for you, they will also, depending on the occasion, shut them in your face or worse. 

More importantly gain some skills that will help you to assess personal and organisational security risks -- both offline and online. This will help you to get out of harms way quickly. Unless you want to deliberately walk into harm’s way for those clicks. Then just go right ahead. 

The writer is a journalism researcher and a writer. He can be contacted on [email protected]

 Several journalists who were engaged in reporting the May 9 riots were injured at Galle Face and near Temple Trees.