Bloggers! How about real news, assuming you are not in a Test Tube

The SL blogging community is growing by the day and there are some very useful blogs for different purposes. One I wish to see is some forum to disseminate real news from the horses mouth as it were, assuming some of you horses are in the thick of the news, as some pretend to be.

Even in today’s Daily News, it was mentioned that additional buses had been laid out for people to get to their homes and that there had been no complaints. Of course the reporters of this esteemed paper are in some office removed from reality not knowing what to say or are just told what to write.

I was marooned in Minneriya for days, as the family who take care of the place went to the wife’s village in Hataraliyadda, nr Kandy for Avurudhu. They were unable to get a bus back to Hingurakgoda from Kandy for days. Who do they make a complaint to that the services are unavailable? No one takes the blame they just pass the buck along to someone else.

Most of the people in Sri Lanka, call a village their home, and if it is just once a year it is to their home village that the great migration is for Avurudhu. Remember that they first have to get a bus from the village to the nearest main town from where they take the long distance train or bus. If the local bus, which invariably does not operate, and they are unwilling to hire a three-wheeler that may cost a week’s wage to get them to the main town, they are marooned. Another obvious lack of “Kalpanakaranna” as the transport from the village is just as important as the intercity. Once our family returned, they said how crowded the buses were, mainly because there were so few available, and not because the crowds were more than usual as people do stagger their return with some only returning on the 19th to leave for work at the auspicious time on 20th morning.

I am using an anecdote to make a statement of disinformation spread in the media that makes it a mockery, and I would rather read a few blogs with actual news rather than reams of SL papers devoted to aspiring journalists writing gobbledygook and completely befuddling us, not realizing that they are just prostituting their profession. Journalists have a responsibility and they cannot hide behind the lack of press freedom as an excuse for their incompetence. I would like some journalists to counter my argument please.