Press Complaints Commission gets 176 complaints against print media
Saturday, 31 August 2013 00:00
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The Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka (PCCSL), the media industry’s self-regulatory body, received 176 complaints against the country’s print media last year (2012), the Commission’s Annual Report that was released this week stated.
The breakdown of these complaints is 87 against the Sinhala language newspapers, 42 against the Tamil press and 29 against the English media with 18 outside print media. The Sinhala language media comprise 44% of the total print media publications, while the Tamil comprise 26% and English 28%.
The report which was submitted at the PCCSL’s annual general meeting earlier this week at the Sri Lanka Press Institute’s auditorium states that 67 of these complaints were resolved by the end of 2012, 17 were pending and the complainant did not proceed with 45. 39 were outside the mandate of the Commission, six were sub-judice and editors hadn’t cooperated on three complaints.
The report refers to essay competitions on media ethics conducted within schools, publications on human trafficking with the ILO and on investigative journalism and the revision of the rules and procedures of the PCCSL, seminars with the Ministry of Defence, the visits of foreign media delegations from Myanmar and Vietnam to study self-regulation of the media in Sri Lanka and workshops on ethical reporting in Colombo, Hendala, Kalubowila, Kelaniya, Negombo, Gampaha, Moratuwa, Horana, Kurunegala, Puttalm, Anuradhapura, Kandy, Badulla, Galle and Jaffna for provincial correspondents and civil society members including school principals, police officers, professionals, academics etc., as among the highlights of the Commission’s work.
Siri Ranasinghe, President of The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka and Editor in Chief of the ‘Lankadeepa’, Sundara Nihathamani de Mel, Consultant Editor, ‘Lakbima’, and M.N. Ameen, President of the Muslim Media Forum were re-elected to the Board of Directors of the PCCSL by the general membership at the AGM.
The other members of the Board re-elected were Kumar Nadesan (Chairman), Sinha Ratnatunga (Deputy Chairman), Nimal Welgama (Newspaper Society), Manik de Silva (Editors’ Guild), Sunil Jayasekera (Free Media Movement) and Seetha Ranjini.
The autonomous Dispute Resolution Council of the PCCSL which investigates reader complaints is headed by Sam Wijesinha (Chairman) and includes Devanesan Nesiah, Gnana Moonesinghe (replaced Sithie Thiruchelvam who resigned), Lucille Wijewardene, Javid Yusuf, Dion Schoorman, Siri Ranasinghe, V. Thevarajah (who replaced the late T. Sabaratnam), Pramod de Silva, Vijitha Fernando and Daya Lankapura.
The PCCSL Secretariat is headed by CEO Sukumar Rockwood and comprises two Complaints officers, Kamal Liyanarachchi (Sinhala media) and Ameen Hussain (Tamil media).
