Lasantha

Lasantha Wickrematunge, wrote this piece in the Sri Lankan news magazine The Sunday Leader shortly before he was shot dead by assailants on his way to work on January 8, 2009. He was the editor of the magazine.

I unfortunately never heard of him and the enormous risks he took while he was alive. It was only after his death that I came to know of him and his work. People, like Lasantha, devoted to their duty above all else are extremely rare. Especially when they are ordinary folks like you and me.

Investigative journalism in the sub-continent is a very dangerous profession. While Sri Lanka seems to have an abysmal record in taking care of its journalists, other countries in the region do not fare too much better. In India, what passes off for journalism in most newspapers and news channels, is just farce, focused as it is largely on celebrities and sensationalism as an end in itself. News magazines like Tehelka are some of the few remaining bastions of true reporting in India. They may not always be right, but they fight hard to expose the truth to the public, especially in those circumstances where it has been forcibly kept under wraps. They provide us with a mirror with which to look into ourselves as a society, culture, country and citizen of the world.

In several countries, including democracies, those who report against the existing powers of the day constantly live under the threat of some sort of retaliation by those powers. Most will find it impossible to continue working under those potentially life-threatening circumstances - and rightly so too. To those few who, inspite of the risks, strive to bring us the truth, and not farce - we owe a lot.