Sri Lanka It's Happening

May 11, 2004

The newspapers in this country are printed on white colored paper. The Financial Times supplement, a part of the daily mirror is an exception. Though it is printed on a pink colored paper like it's counterpart in the UK similarities end there. The local version contains one column inch of news and analysis for every hundred of press releases.

As for the other papers they should be printed on yellow colored paper. Because they are all yellow. Again we can look for an exception in the Sunday Leader, but it's not very popular because some people consider it to be slightly biased, but all Sri Lankan news papers are biased.

It is pointless talking about the state media mafia, but the lilly livered nature of the so called free media can be shown with some examples:

This one appeared on the daily mirror on 10th May.
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The newspaper does not mention the name of the super market at least once during the whole article. That's because the three biggest super market chains are controlled by three very large conglomarates. Antagonize them and millions of rupees worth of advertising dries up. So just as the reporters and editors of the state media lick of the boots of government ministers, their counter parts in the free media lick the boots of big business.

Posted by raditha at May 11, 2004 12:54 PM