Tyranny of Tiran Alles and sycophants

Cut-throat hacks and media moguls rule

| by Pearl Thevanayagam

(June 21, 2012, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Lalith Alahakoon is far too decent a journalist to be in Colombo's cut-throat media. It is his naivete which ended his posting as editor of Ceylon Today. A former Lake House Director once told me this when I complained about my not being paid my salary all because I was offered a journalism fellowship in the US. 'Lake House is a snake-pit and if you are not one of the snakes you cannot survive here'.

Lalith Alahakoon

The management told me it is hardly likely that I would return to Sri Lanka since I had every opportunity to pursue further education given my background of having been a victim of July 1983 riots after my stint in the US and hence I would not be paid. They also ended my contract. To their surprise I came back to Daily news and they had no choice but to re-instate me. Soon after I gave my resignation and moved on to Sunday Leader since I was too revolted and disillusioned by the arm-twisting tactics of the editorial management to write sunshine stories of the government.

I have only met Lalith a few times but he was not one to rant and rave at press conferences. He is under-stated and dignified in his own way. He is more a listener than a talker. If more than 36 media workers were murdered by the government since Richard de Soysa in 1990 for his exposure of Premadasa government's elite Black Cats killer squad led by Udugampola murdering thousands of JVP youth who demonstrated against IPKF intervention to the foreign media, Lalith is lucky to have escaped alive with only a sacking.

I once persuaded the director of Weekend Express to recruit an eager Tamil wannabe journalist despite his inability to articulate in English since he showed such enthusiasm to learn the trade. He turned out to be the first one to petition for my removal as news editor when another of the directors who had no experience in journalism wanted me to be pro-government and set up an advertising person to head the news desk!. Now he is in the UK with his extended family after claiming asylum.

Pradeep Ekneliyagoda is/was another victim in the witch-hunt by government goon squad for his blunt and brutal caricature of politicians to expose corruption and nepotism in politics. He is/was the Collette of our time.

The rot sets in when news media is penetrated by non-journalists whose claim to fame lies elsewhere such as being press-officers, copy-writers, and degree holders in English Literature, sociology, and anthropology. Their contributions to journalism are always welcome in the appropriate sections of the media such as features on specialist topics. But when they wheedle their way into the editorial then news media succumb to their focus on their specialties and to promote their credentials rather than tell the story as it is and when it happens without agendas be they political or selfish.

The FMM (Free Media Movement) is a classic example of such infiltration and hence its eerie silence over Mr Alahakoon's unjustified dismissal by the owner. Then again, given its spurious reputation for fiddling foreign funds it is far better that his name is not tainted by the support of FMM.

While organising a Press Freedom Forum on Sri Lanka in 2007 on behalf of the EJN (Exiled Journalists Network) UK at the House of Commons, EJN's director, a British gentleman, met a lady in the Middle East who claimed to be a journalist in Sri Lanka. It turned out she was a PR officer for a company dealing in mobile phones. Had I not intervened she would have been a speaker at the forum along with Amnesty International, RSF and other international media and human rights groups.

The agitation to re-instate Mr Alahakoon should come from all decent journalists regardless of whether they belong to any media movements championing freedom of expression.

The writer is Asia Pacific Journalism Fellow at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, California and a print journalist for 22 years. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)