Media
at fault
Since the much-publicised speech by the JVP propaganda secretary
Wimal Weerawansa attacking the President, other UPFA members have
had to defend the fragile Alliance image on other public forums
such as TV political talk shows. Deputy Minister Sripathi Sooriyarachchi
was on a show last Thursday when he was asked for his reaction to
the JVP MP's speech. He didn't comment on the speech but instead
went into say that Mr. Weerawansa had spoken for 35 minutes at the
now famous "Desha Hithaishi" meeting at Ratnapura of which
33 minutes had been spent on attacking the UNP, but all TV stations
including the state-run ones had only highlighted the two minutes
where the President was mocked at. So it was once again all the
fault of the media and the Alliance was on a sound footing.
A
faux pas
At last Thursday's post-Cabinet press briefing, Media
Minister Mangala Samaraweera displayed a Sinhala daily and strongly
denied the main story in it calling it a blatant lie (patta pal
boruwak). Then he turned his sights on a Tamil daily which carried
a story saying the Peace Secretariat head Jayantha Dhanapala had
quit and wanted a similar sentiment expressed about that story as
well. He turned to the reporter representing the Tamil daily and
asked him how to say "patta pal boruwak" in Tamil. Ironically
he had asked the question from the same journalist who had written
it. Only the Minister wasn't aware of it. |
