Media professors and practitioners criticized Sri Lankan media for “attempting to create an opinion that there is media suppression in the country,” Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation reported.
As an example, Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corp. cited director general of government information professor Ariyaratne Athugala as saying the Internet makes it impossible to “suppress the media.” Further, Gamini Sumanasekera, news site Divaina’s chief editor, stated that “there is no media suppression in the country.”
Unimpressed by such cherry-picked denials, Reporters without Borders continues to rank Sri Lanka 158th of 178 countries in its 2010 press freedom index ranking.
As iMediaEthics reported earlier this month, a Sri Lankan news site, www.lankaenews.com, was attacked by arson recently. The site “regularly criticises the Sri Lankan government.” Also, Sri Lankan cartoonist Prageeth Eknaligoda has been missing since Jan. 2010.