Something else that worried me, overall, from that encounter was repeated references to computer technicians — perhaps suggestive of a notion in some Lankan academics that Internet-based media are basically something best practised by those who dabble in computer hardware and software? I didn’t get to probe this further, but some audience members spoke with unconcealed disdain towards citizen journalists and even web-savvy hybrids like myself.

If we extend the same weird logic, television CONTENT is best produced by TV repairmen, while the finest radio programmes should emerge from those who can dismantle a radio receiver and put it back together, right?

I may be wrong, but is this snooty dismissal of geeks widely prevalent in Lankan academia? I probably riled by singing praise of Geeks for changing our modern world, and in calling for Public Interest Geeks!

Also, I was puzzled why did NONE of the mass comm students think of live (or delayed) blogging or tweeting from the National Media Summit? There was connectivity and access. But minds already closed?

The academic snootiness came up on a few occasions with some of them running down practising journalists who “lack training”. I’m quite used to professors of mass communication lecturing on newsroom realities without EVER once having been inside one, let alone worked in such situations.

Some audience comments were particularly harsh about citizen journalism (asking, for instance, what could happen if citizen pilots or citizen surgeons were permitted in those fields). I let such absurdities pass without rejoinder.

Mind you, it wasn’t just the University of Kelaniya academics; media teachers and researchers from half a dozen Lankan unis were assembled. I sympathise with the graduates they churn out, but worry more about the kind of policy advice they give to naive and opportunistic politicians!

Your presentation was very very basic, infact chicken feed for academics teaching fast pace journalism these days.

Did they discuss whether journalists have an “agenda”? Average mortals in government seem to think so. I wonder what the “properly trained” journo grads have to say?

Anyone coming from the Kelaniya Uni school of journalism, will quickly find out that they are fossilised in the modern newsroom.