A neighbour's guide to media self-regulation: Sri Lanka's Press Complaints Commission shares hard-won lessons

The PCCSL has operated for over two decades as a voluntary self-regulatory body, resolving dozens of complaints annually without government interference. It emerged from the 1998 Colombo Declaration on Press Freedom and Social Responsibility and follows the principles of conciliation, mediation, and arbitration.

"We don't charge legal fees or anything [from complainants]. If they want to punish the journalist, punish the editor or punish the publisher, we don't do that. We just get the correction, that's it. If you agree to it, you have to sign at the bottom. It's a gentleman's agreement. It's not binding that we accept this way of doing things," Rockwood explained to the Maldives Independent. 

The commission attended to 84 cases in 2024. It has received 61 complaints so far this year, he said. 

A separate Press Council formed under a 1973 law and comprised of presidential appointees meanwhile remains in place. The government body is kept as a "threat" of punishment against the media, Rockwood suggested.

The long-serving veteran addressed criticism about the industry body and offered insights on how journalists can maintain ethical standards and public accountability while resisting government control.

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity. 

Sukumar Rockwood: [At a symposium with foreign speakers, local journalists and media workers in 1998] they had all come and arrived at a situation where Sri Lanka deeply needed a setup which would look after self-regulation, which would also promote training of journalists and also would advocate with the government.

So three institutions were set up. The Press Complaints Commission was set up for self-regulation. The Sri Lanka College of Journalism was set up for the training of journalists. And the SLPI [Sri Lanka Press Institute] was set up for advocating with the government.

This was the outcome of that symposium. Then the Editors Guild all got together and formed themselves. The Editors Guild of Sri Lanka, Newspaper Societies of Sri Lanka, the publishers, they all got together and they formed themselves as the Newspaper Publishers Society of Sri Lanka. And then we had the Free Media Movement, which was already in existence, and the Sri Lanka Working Journalist Association. So all four of them were also are part of this whole meeting. ​That is how we set up in 1998. 

We didn't have any government pressure whatsoever. The government just allowed us to do what we wanted to do. At that time, there was free media in existence. But one landmark decision on the Press Complaints Commission was that they had criminal defamation as well as civil defamation [prior to self-regulation].

So when some of the editors have been caught under criminal defamation, the idea was to remove criminal defamation. So how did they do that? They set up something which would remove criminal defamation. So they set up the Press Complaints Commission and that seemed to be a good body which was acceptable by them. And so the criminal defamation was then removed completely. So now you only have civil defamation.

Any reader who sees anything that is published in the newspapers, he or she can complain to us directly. And there is a prescribed form you have to fill up, giving details of the story, the date, the page number and name of the complainant and tell us what type of complaint this is, together with paper cutting, and together with a letter from the complainant stating as to what the real problem is in this story.

So all these three documents, once they come to us, we take it and then we go through it and we see whether there is a violation of the editor's code. If there is a violation of the editor's code, I immediately contact the editor directly over the phone and tell him there is such a thing.

Because I'm a senior journalist also, there's no problem contacting the editor. Even though they have new ones who have come in, they have been through the middle, so they have heard of me at some point somewhere. So there's a certain respect they have for me. So I just am able to call them up and tell them that this is a violation and you have to do something about this, send it to me, we will have a look at it. So we send the documents to them with the covering letter.

Then he has a look at it and then he come back to us and says, "yes, there is a problem on our side. How do we rectify it?" So then we get the rectification things sorted out with the complainant – how does he wants it rectified – and we send it to the editor and he publishes it.

If that right of reply or the correction or the clarification is not published by the newspaper, then we go to another level.

Then what happens is you go to the Dispute Resolution Council. This is an 11-member body. It is appointed by the board of directors, names proposed by me. And of these 11, five are journalists – working journalists in different fields, photographers, club managers, administrators.

They make up that five. The other six are non-media-related professionals. So for instance, we have a secretary general of parliament. The former secretary of parliament is the chairman of this and he's an attorney-at-law. He has to be an attorney at law, the chairman. And then we have four, five others, so it's only six.

So I take it to them and then they look at it and then they look at the editor's code and then they satisfy themselves that this is a violation. And then what happens is they then summon the editor. The editor appoints three members from the Editors Guild of Sri Lanka. I find three members. One is journalist. One journalists has to be on this inquiry board.

And then we sit and listen to the discussion of the complainant as to what problem he has with the publication. And then we also talk to the editor concerned. And then once it's finished, we then decide. We decide on an answer and then we ask the editor and the complainant to see whether it is acceptable. Once it's accepted, we send it to the paper and the paper publishes.

But there is a small little deviation from that point where we come under [the law]. There is an Arbitration Act in Sri Lanka or a mediation board. So we come under that and that Act says that have we set it up and we have to do the whole inquiry. And then at that point, if they don't publish it, we go to the High Court, actually the appeal court, and petition [the court]. So then that's the last [stage].

And then they have to carry it and that becomes contempt of court if the editor doesn't carry [the right of reply, correction or clarification]. But for my last 20, 25 years here, I have never had to go that far. Because when it comes to that point – there's only one instance when it came to that point. I told the legal office of the publishing newspaper, "look, you're going to go into a lot of trouble and honestly, expense. Why don't you just carry this correction, tell your editor." So he tells the editor. Then the publisher tells the editor, no, you have to carry it.

I say measure the success of self-regulation through three things. One is the right of readers. Public notice is published in the papers free of charge every day or once a week or whatever.

Two is that I can see the response from the editors. The moment the complainant rings the editor and tells, "you've carried my name wrong on this picture. I was not in that picture and you have put my name there." Correct it. Those things are corrected instantly without any problem.

Thirdly it is by the complaints sent to us by the reader. We rectify those and then send it to the paper for publication. Then it's sorted out. So that's how we have seen that self-regulation is working and is very good with the independent newspaper industry. 

I also like to say that the Lake House Group, which is government [owned], they also are supporting the independent use of the self-regulatory system.

We have a problem with funding.

So at the initial stages, Norway, Sweden and Denmark gave us money in the startup. Then with the peace process, Denmark moved out. Then Sweden moved out and now Norway has moved out. So now we don't get any funding at all. We have to depend solely on projects done by the SLPI for journalists.

And then with that funding only we manage. It's a very tight shoestring budget and it's really difficult because I can't go about now like before and do training for journalists. It's impossible.

So you don't have money to pay to travel, to go to hotels and all. Also that part is not done, but thank God, because of internet and all these things, you can easily have access to them. 

No. So far they've just allowed us to go by for the time being. This media national policy thing that is there now – and I don't know whether it's going to work because we don't support it. So we have told them directly, we are not supporting this and we are not coming for any of your meetings dealing with the national media policy of Sri Lanka.

Online content we do not do. We only do the print [newspapers]. We have separate things that do the fake news and things like that, but not for TV. So we do not have any regulations. We don't do anything.

And there is no regulation in the country for online TV and also for social media. So that's why they're trying to bring in this other Act, for social media control.

Yes. So we don't want to. We can't do online because to do online you have to have money. So we don't have the money to do that.

And you have to have the people, the resources to do it. So we can only do the print.

That [funding] is a basic issue. It's all about money at the end of the day.

But if the newspaper has an online version of the printed version, that falls into the PCCSL also. So if they have a correction, a mistake, a wrong report in the online version of the newspaper and they complain to us about the online version, somebody sees it and complains, they carry the correction.

All of them.

All the Sri Lankan newspapers now have an online [presence] and some of them don't have printed versions also, which is expensive and it's a loss-making venture right now because after Covid, everybody stopped reading newspapers and they started switching to online. And slowly, slowly this became the new thing now. So banking apps are there. Markets. All the apps are on this phone, on mobile phones.

So we are losing out a lot on that because people are buying less and less newspapers. So we are in fact telling the TV industry, don't market the newspaper. You can talk about the headline, but don't go into discussions of the content of the story and opinions. So that discussion is going on at the moment.

So the first step that the Maldives industry has to do is to get people organised into a group. Your editors must all get together. Then your publishers must all get together, the owners. And then you have your journalist group. So then the representatives of all these three should get into one group.

When they get put together, they have representation – two from each or whatever or several. And try to then formulate some ideas where they all are agreeable to. Because if they are all agreeable to certain ideas, then you can move it forward. But if they don't accept those ideas, then you have to adjust it here and there so they all accept it.

So here we have all editors, all the publishers and the two media organisations accepting those regulations, which came up in the Colombo Declaration. We talked about the newspapers, how to handle that, the taxes on that. We talked about the punishment of journalists and all. So those issues that concern print media is all in that and everybody likes it.

I don't think so. We don't need government regulation because we are all adults. And you tell the adults: these are your limitations. They should learn and accept it. Sometimes it will be difficult for adults to accept and sometimes it will take a long time. But eventually, by and large, they'll accept.

They just do it because of solidarity. They just try to, you know, get in anywhere and try and support [other South Asian organisations]. Because when they are in trouble, they think all the other organisations will also [do the same]. You scratch my back, I scratch your back.

I would say first thing that they should do is they should see why are the threats coming. Are the threats coming because they're printing false stories or is it because there are people who are going around asking unnecessary questions from unnecessary people or important people that could be a threat to the entire fraternity?

So they got to look at those and they got to somehow try and go around it. So the best way to do it is whenever you write stories, go to the authorities themselves and get a quote from them. So you put the other quote plus you get a quotation from them so that you are covered. Because this is what he says. This is what the authority says.

That's it. And when the authority gets angry with you, you say, "well, I have given what the public wants, I've also given what you also say. So therefore it should be up to the people. They can take their own decision."

You have to educate people, accept that social responsibility is a huge thing. You’re trying to tell something about suicides, or rape stories, or do something good for the people. People must by and large accept that. We have rape stories here, there’s lots of laws about rape. We don't give the details of the girl, we don't give her area, her school, parents, nothing. Even the court proceedings we dont put it up.