Take a breather, we all need it

Municipal worker disinfecting a journalist who was on the field during the lockdown period. Photo - AFP

• We need to make sure that we do not fall into the trap of digital hyperdrive that will make our lives look and feel like driving through a perpetual laser show
• This could be the year when journalism takes a breath, focuses on the basics, and comes back stronger,” the Reuters Institute said in its trends and predictions for this year

My last column, where I wrote about my personal struggle of reporting on the Lasantha Wickrematunge murder generated quite a bit of reactions. Some were praising me, most were ambivalent and few were rudely critical. 
Most commented about how I had tried to be honest. Not to hero worship Lasantha as many of his fans have been prone to do. The same trait however did not go down well with others, who felt that I was engaged in nothing but vandalising. 
I did not go into detail on my personal struggle. You can’t do that in a 700-word column. But how I dealt with the murder as a story and as a very personal tragedy has formed my journalism in the last decade. It has been integral to what I have become as a writer. 

When I started my journalism, there was no journalism school in Sri Lanka. The ill-advised mantra across newsrooms was ‘at the deep end and either you swim or sink’. A dumb bit of advise, but that was how it was for newcomers. We made mistakes, the worst kind of them because we did not know they were wrong turns. We just kept going. 
There was also the ideal of bulletproof detachment. Journalism was expected to be super objective. Within such an environment there was no room to discuss how journalists covered a war detached while it was killing hundreds of fellow citizens and fracturing their own communities. We never spoke about this. In fact, we were programmed not to. Those who did were at the receiving end of snide remarks of being too soft and not cut out for the job. 

Things have changed. If anything, the last two years have shown us that the lived experiences defined each one of us and whole generations in one brush stroke. It is best we acknowledge this before we look into 2022. 
“2022 will be a year of careful consolidation for a news industry that has been both disrupted and galvanised by the drawn-out COVID-19 crisis. Both journalists and audiences have, to some degree, been ‘burnt out’ by the relentless intensity of the news agenda, alongside increasingly polarised debates about politics, identity, and culture. This could be the year when journalism takes a breath, focuses on the basics, and comes back stronger,” the Reuters Institute said in its trends and predictions for this year. 

We are in a world dominated by hyperbole and clickbait. Every minute we spend would feel like a whirlwind. We need to make sure that we do not fall into the trap of digital hyperdrive that will make our lives look and feel like driving through a perpetual laser show.
This is happening all over the world and Sri Lanka is no exception. Political and racially divided, what we have is a media community, when I say community this includes everything from traditional press to those who are manufacturing memes, that is focused on gaining as many eyeballs as possible. The best way to do this is to deepen the divisions and heighten the tensions. 

Both as media producers and consumers are victims of this. So, what happens now?
I think we need to find a balance between reporting honestly and not always shouting wolf. Journalism should not be a detached reflection of the world around us. We should relate to the world we live in but do so honestly and truthfully. 
It is a horror show on repeat that we live in; COVID, climate change and more closer to home; a government in shambles but still cocky and a bottom scraping economy.
Journalism needs to be relevant to the times we live in, not scare people. 
The writer is a journalism researcher and a writer. He can be contacted on [email protected]