Nisadas

The Island recently published an apology for stealing David Blacker’s interview with Dayan Jayatillake, misspelling the URL from where they had purloined it.

In the same paper, there was a Reply from a high ranking official in the police (I forget the rank) calling into question the authenticity of one of their articles on Sri Lankan cops. While I haven’t seen the article in question, it seems that it is very much the same thing that did its rounds via email and even ended up on Sigma’s blog (http://taurus19lk.blogspot.com/2009/07/sri-lankan-cops-useful-tips-to-up-date.html) Of course, Sigma had the sense to put a disclaimer on the authenticity of the whole thing.

All this from the same paper behind the Adult content  in the Kiddies paper? Why am I not surprised?

Then there are the various stories of theft of Intellectual Property – be it images uploaded on the net, or even complete posts – by the nefarious staff of the local newspapers.

I’m no journalist, but in my younger days I harboured some delusions of being one some day. The lack of any creative skill meant that my only ventures in writing would be limited to interviews (which nevertheless were a fantastic opportunity to meet some truly amazing people) and the occasional write-up. Therefore, the world has generally been spared the words of Dulan, apart from this blog.

Therefore, I am (like so many others) under the impression that this gives me the full right to criticise journalists writing to the newspapers. Which can sometimes be unfair – my wages don’t depend on my writing.

However, what I cannot understand is, why are there newspapers paying people to plagiarize? I’m no expert, but I’m fairly sure that Content is King. Be it a humble blog, a revered sports site or a national newspaper, you’re not getting very far if you don’t have something to fill the pages. As of late (I rarely read the newspapers, so perhaps I’m wrong) there’s been a large amount of internet content finding its way into the local papers, with IMHO very little quality control or fact checking. This just means that the paper in question loses credibility with those people who know what its been up to, while also developing a reputation for being poor in content.

This situation nevertheless covers up a fantastic opportunity. Instead of simply adding a circulated email to the newspaper, why not get someone to meet with an official in the Police to verify the situation and getting the whole truth? With the amount of absolute rubbish that circulates in our email systems, just debunking the myths could be a full time job, but what about creating a discussion based on the ideas they bring about?

The next time there’s an email on how forwarding it could result in a donation from AOL/Bill Gates, maybe some research on email methods could be employed? Perhaps an article on the unethical address harvesting by Email Marketing companies in Sri Lanka?

I guess the timeliness is what matters most. Why bother researching or interviewing someone when a simple Google search can yield so much information? Saves time and money, No?

Well, that’s for the journalists in Sri Lanka to figure out. I’ll stick to my rare and random thoughts (and the occasional rant) for the time being.