අශීලාචාර තැනක තිබෙන්නේ දේශපාලනය පමණක්ද?
A satirical column by Vimalanath Weeraratne about Ivan’s role in securing the Lanka editor’s release provoked a crisis at Ravaya: Ivan announced he would stop writing for the paper, and Janaranjana offered to resign as acting head of the editorial board before the matter was settled. Ivan defends his interventions with the President — for the Lanka editor, for Parameshwari, for a detained astrologer — and denies rumours that his son was sent abroad at state expense. He then turns on his own profession, arguing journalists are as disreputable as politicians: the fabricated story of Premadasa bathing in milk drew condemnation for the attack on the printing press but none for the reporting that provoked it, and foreign-registered websites now let anyone publish gutter journalism beyond reach of the law. He closes with his own inquiries into Prageeth Eknaligoda’s disappearance.
ගන්ධබ්බ තත්ත්වයකට පත්ව සිටින ජනමාධ්යවේදීන්
The Sirasa attack and Lasantha’s killing have frightened journalists, some of whom have already left the country, and many now speak of a terrible new era. Ivan argues it is not new: every administration since 1978 has done this. Under Jayewardene no mainstream paper criticised the government even over the opposition leader’s civic rights, the hooting of Supreme Court judges, or the pardon of Gonawala Sunil; only opposition papers did, and they were sealed and prosecuted for criminal defamation. Under Chandrika Kumaratunga, whom journalists helped bring to power, Satana’s editor Rohana Kumara was shot in circumstances close to Lasantha’s, and Lasantha himself was beaten and his house fired on. Yet the press has now cast her as saviour, and made Mangala Samaraweera — once the symbol of media repression, whose effigies they burned — the chief mourner. Journalists forget, and in forgetting protect the system.