Young Global Leaders Taste Floppy Journalism

By Darshanie Saman Kumari –April 3, 2016

Dr. Ranga Kalansooriya, Regional Adviser, Asia for International Media Support, is addressing a gathering of informal ambassadors to Sri Lanka. They are the Young Global Leaders (YGLs) of the World Economic Forum (WEF) from the South Asian region, here for the South Asia Bridge Initiative, the first ever WEF event to be hosted by Sri Lanka. Kalansooriya has been given the opportunity to round off a series of presentations by a dynamic panel including Dr. Saman Kelagama, Dr. Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Mr. Rajendra Theagarajah, Professor Imtiaz Ahmed, Linda Speldewinde, and Anushka Wijesinha.

The South Asian YGLs make an uninitiated but deeply affirming audience. They listen to each speaker with flattering attention, laugh in all the right places and applaud witticisms with childlike enthusiasm, free from too much background information, always an impediment to the enjoyment of a speech. Of all the speakers there, Ranga Kalansooriya alone abuses the trust of this receptive audience, by dishing out disinformation under the broad topic ‘The media landscape of Sri Lanka’.

“Sri Lanka has a very passive media in that context. We have never toppled any government through media. [Whispering in the audience]. India did. Rajiv Gandhi was toppled by a media campaign through the Bofos scandal. But we never did. But we toppled a government through social media last year.” He informs his captive audience gathered at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce in the morning of 18 February 2016.

“Both Myanmar and Sri Lanka are Buddhist majority. But what happened, who made this change? “, Kalansooriya asks exuding clouds of faulty logic which settles on the gathering like a fog. He explains that in Myanmar, Buddhist clergy, of a radical hue – the 969 movement – went around the country asking people not to vote for Aung San Suu Kyi, an agent, according to them of Islamization, separatism and internationalization. But still, says Ranga, the Buddhist majority Myanmar did not listen to the voice of the clergy. Then he goes on to say that in Sri Lanka the same story played out. “In Sri Lanka the same story. Nationalistic movements and some clergy went around the country saying not to vote [for Maithripala Sirisena] or to vote for the existing President, otherwise [they warned about] the conspirators, the international community, the war heroes, all the series, rhetoric, all the stereotypes. But what happened? The strong man lost”

                                                                Read More