Digital Technology and Journalism by Jingrong Tong & Shih-Hung Lo

Author:Jingrong Tong & Shih-Hung Lo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

The Use of Satellite Technology

Satellite technology gave an unprecedented insight into the mass flows of people in the final battle zones. Having been used in a similar fashion during Bosnia’s armed conflict, where the mass graves of 8,000 Muslim men and boys after their execution by Serbian forces could be seen (Parks 2005) it now provided a new insight into the landscape in which hundreds of thousands of Tamils were sheltering. Tarpaulin white tents were steadily replaced with craters from artillery shells and aerial bombs. These images, evidence of the systematic and indiscriminate nature of the Sri Lankan bombardment, were captured by international satellites, with the United Nations Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNITAR 2009) and the US State Department (2009), releasing these images to international media. They would remain for years afterwards, accessible even through commercial channels such as Google Maps, and a potent reminder of the massacres (AAAS 2009).

Journalists located in the final conflict zone used this technology too. Appuththurai Lokeesan, TamilNet’s chief correspondent in the Vanni, was equipped with the technology that allowed him to document and broadcast the crimes that were taking place. Using a solar power pack, two laptops, a digital camera, a handheld Thuraya satellite phone and a Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) portable satellite dish allowing Internet access from almost anywhere in the globe through INMARSAT’s three geostationary I-4 satellites, he filed dozens of stories in the final few weeks, capturing the carnage that was occurring (Harrison 2012). His courageous journalism, providing one of the very few channels into the war zone, was only made possible due to the technology that was integral to his work.

When Lokeesan came to surrender to the military, he was forced to destroy all his equipment to disguise his journalist background. He snapped his computers and satellite equipment, burying it in the sands of his bunker. “Destroying all my equipment that I had protected for so many years, it felt as if I was killing a part of myself,” he said (Harrison 2012).

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