BREAK THE POWER OF THE PRESS MAGNATES
By V. Karalasingham
[The following article has been translated from the October 93 issue of the Samasamajaya, official Sinhalese weekly of the Lanka Sama Samaja party (Revolutionary Sestion) published in Colombo, Ceylon. ]
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It is no more possible for the bourgeois press, whether run by private capital or the capitalist state, to have a healthy, socialist and humane outlook than for the College of Cardinals and the papacy in Rome to be socialist institutions or the Asgiriya and Malwatte Chapters” to have a revolutionary orientation. The one is as impossible as the other.
The choking fumes which exude from the editorial, news and features columns of the daily press are the poisonous emanations of the decomposition of capitalist civilisation and culture and their total elimination from our cultural life is only. possible by the overthrow of the present rotten society. But the reader has every right to ask, outside the final solution provided by the socialist revolution, have you no answer to the power and influence of the newspaper magnates -- a power and influence which is so completely out of proportion to their numerical strength? Marxism would be a worthless dogma, and not what it is, a guide to revolutionary action, if it did not also provide a bridge between today and tomorrow -that is, if its slogans and demands, while meeting the current immediate issues did not also by virtue of the very agitation for their realisation inexorably lead towards both the transitional and final solution of the problem,
*Buddhist clerioal organisations.
-. The charlatans of the government, the former leaders of. the LSSP [Lanka Sama Samaja party], who having abandoned the method of | Marxism long before their final capitulation to the SLFP [Sri Lanka Freedom party] in June 1964, deliberately kept out-of the party's propaganda the essential. measures necessary both to protect and ex-. tend the freedom of the press and to curb the tremendous power of the capitalist barons, Not being interested in the revolutionary conquest of power, the old leadership did not use the method of Marxism to formulate a programme of transitional demands in respect of the newspaper industry. The result was that when the SLFP in July 1960 sought to create a genuine press monopoly under its patronage, the opportunist LSSP leadership gave this reactionary proposal its willing support. Today opportunism has given place to downright servility since it is now specially hired to sponsor an obnoxious bill which does not even make a pretence of fighting the press tycoons in the newspaper industry. A further consequence of this failure is that the broad masses are unprepared to meet the new offensive of the capitalist government. In fact the position is truly alarming in that wide layers are in support of a bill which though in form directed against the daily press is in fact aimed at the masses, in particular those organised in the trade-union movement. . oe
Any measure designed to fight the reactionary press of the... capitalist class must strike at the economic power of the private — owners, and strike at it in the most effective and merciless manner. possible. It must at the same time not assail in however a trifling way the freedom of the press, since this is a right in which the working class. is vitally interested, and not. a mere “abstract" right as made out by petty-bourgeois camp followers of the bourgeois government. The final requirement of any measure, and particularly. of a measure which is sponsored by persons who call themselves socialists is that it must serve to promote the struggle against the capitalist class and also advance the interests of the socialist working-class press. These are the essential conditions which must be fulfilled, not only to receive the support of revolutionary Marxists but to establish the seriousness of the claim that any proposed legislation is:intended to fight the press magnates. The deceptive character of the demagogy of Mrs. Bandaranaike's "leftist" hirelings is clearly revealed in the fact that nothing they have said meets the minimum desiderata already mentioned,
What gives the capitalist press its economic power and therefore its infinite superiority. over the revolutionary press is the enormous revenue derived from commercial advertisements. -More than the. income from mass circulations of their newspapers, advertisement revenue is the source of their power. Equally the complete lack of this source of income for the socialist press places the latter in a distinctly disadvantageous position. ..... . Lt £8 not only the poor circulation which keeps advertisers away from the revolutionary press. ,As a matter of policy too, the
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big capitalist combines which advertise in their capitalist press do not desire to encourage socialist papers by advertising in them. For them the ultimate danger arising from the growth of a socialist newspaper far outweighs the immediate financial benefits derived from increased sales of their products. That is why they impose a virtual advertisement. boycott of the left-wing press. But the revolutionary socialist press catering to the working class and toilers must be given the opportunity to participate in the revenue accruing to the capitalist press lords.
Accordingly the socialist movement must propose that advertisement revenue of all newspapers, weeklies and periodicals must: be centrally pooled and this fund divided proportionately among both the socialist newspapers, weeklies and periodicals and the capitalist: newspapers. By this means not only is the boycott of the big capitalist advertisers broken, the socialist press too is strengthened financially and a big inroad made into the economic power of the private press proprietors,
Create a Central Advertisement Pool for All Printed Advertising! |
Share Advertisement Revenue with All Weeklies and Periodicals!
At the same time the power of the. owners in the administration of the newspapers must be curbed in a decisive manner. Today as a matter of policy they set up one section of employees against another. Wages are determined not on any recognised principle but on the whims and fancies of the management.
In fact the award of wage increments is an important instrument in keeping the staff in a near perpetual state of hostility among themselves, By the simple device of arbitrarily picking on employees to whom special emoluments are paid, an elaborate apparatus of stool pigeons is maintained. Journalists soon shed all independence and. even the best among them are caught up in the race to catch the employer's eye for his next increment or benefit. That is, they. begin to outbid each other in serving the crude class. interests. of the employers.
This whole pernicious system must be ‘ended, and this can be done only by giving statutory power to the trade unions in the different daily newspapers to determine wages. The press employers must be denied the right of fixing wages!
The trade-union power must extend not only in respect of employees actually engaged in the production of newspapers, like editorial, news and features staff, printing and technical staff, but the unions must also be empowered to fix the salaries of the executive staff not actually.engaged in the production of newspapers. It is well known that whole classes of parasites called executives are maintained at inflated salaries and their functions are the
maintenance of discipline and the protection of the capitalist character of. the newspapers by the determination of the broad lines of policy. The salaries of those categories not actually linked to the production line of newspapers must be scaled down,
Reduce Salaries of Parasitic Executives!
Give Trade Unions in the Newspaper Industry the Power to Pix Wages!
In respect of the profits of the newspaper industry, today both the state and the private owners appropriate them, the former by direct taxation and the latter by way of dividends on their share capital. Despite the prostitution of the press by the private owners, the planning, designing, production and distribution of a newspaper are as much aspects. of cultural activity as any of the more widely recognised forms, Indeed the circulation figures of the daily and periodical press of any country are a fair index of the general cultural level of a people.
“pha” being so, the unrestricted ‘appropriation of an industry, which is basically a cultural pursuit, by the state for the maintenance of its. repressive machinery and by. private capital for the further consolidation of its economic power cannot find justification in any known principle. Clearly the profits must be utilised for the further expansion and diffusion of culture. And in the case of the profits of the Ceylon newspaper industry which is exclusively devoted to the dissemination of the most reactionary jingoist. ideas, what can be a more compensatory and therefore a more satisfying way of achieving those ends of cultural expansion than that these profits be made available to the revolutionary socialist press of the working class for the spread of genuine socialist ideas among the masses?
Not only will socialist propaganda and culture be made available to newer and newer layers of the masses, but the economic power of the capitalist press magnates too will be completely paralysed, and what is most important, the socialist press immeasurably strengthened and stabilised to complete on almost near equal terms with the capitalist press. Severe restrictions must be placed on the distribution of dividends -- dividends to be paid only to those share- -holders who have no other means of subsistence! The principle of a means test must be introduced and all shareholders of the various newspaper companies who have other profitable sources of income must be paid no dividends. The net profits after the payment of dividends to shareholders who pass the means test; i.e., needy shareholders, must be distributed among the socialist working-class newspapers. nn ; eed
No Taxation. of News spaper Profitst
mr 1 (a Means Test to Shareholders!
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Distribute Profits to the Socialist Working-class Press!
It is well known that the best technical equipment in the printing industry is the monopoly,of the daily newspapers. But their job printing departments with their exaggerated quotations are available only to patrons from among the capitalist class. Even if exceptionally the price barrier is overcome, the proprietors shamelessly discriminate against socialist publications and refuse to undertake work from the left-wing parties, At the same time, they show no hesitation whatever in undertaking printing for the UNP [United National party]. The job department of the daily newspapers must be thrown open to the working-class papers and their printing must be executed at cost. The job departments of each of the daily newspapers .must be allocated to a socialist weekly.
Open the Job Department to Socialist Printing!
Print. Socialist Newspapers at Cost! |
Allocate. Newspaper Job. Department to the Socialist Press!
During election time the. newspapers must be compelled to apportion equal space to all parties. Between nomination day and date of polling, space in the daily press must be equally distributed among political parties and. all election comment and reports restricted to what appears in the space made available to the various parties. By this means the interference of the press in elections is eliminated without infringing the freedom of the press since all parties in the space alloted to them would both offer comment and report their campaigns. What will be done away with is the fictitious. impartiality of anonymous correspondents and leader writers. . o
Amend Election Order in Council to Compe 1 Newspapers to Allocate Equal Space to All Parties!
In the proposals submitted by us for the consideration of the organised labour movement, the reader wil] notice the complete absence of any measure curtailing the right of free expression, But at the same time the proposals go to the heart of the matter -- the break up of the economic power of the bourgeois press, and the diversion of these resources, not to the capitalist state but to the strengthening of the socialist press of the working class. In fact both. in the struggle for the realisation of these demands and in their realisation alone can the power of the bourgeois press be broken and the struggle against capitalism itself pressed forward, That is precisely why the government of Mrs, Bandaranaike, resting as it does on one section of private property,is so reluctant to proceed on..the lines indicated above. To do-so would be to undermine ultimately.the whole basis of private property itself. The revisionists of the LSSP who have long abandoned the historic interest of tle working class and are now contemptibly: trailing behind the govern-
ment,.in their turn, can no longer advocate genuine socialist solutions which would take the working class nearer its goal. They can only hire their dubious talent in the service of that section of property owners represented by Mrs. Bandaranaike, and therefore must increasingly come forward in support of proposals which a few months ago they themselves would have spurned. That is what is happening now! Mrs. Bandaranaike can well be satisfied that her new servants are worthy of their hire.
WEST BENGAL LEFT COMMUNISTS HOLD STATE CONFERENCE
By Himoo Kalani
CALCUTTA. -- The Left