Ceylon Today Saga: The Management Speaks Out
June 25, 2012
The Ceylon Today management has sent their version of the story. We below produce the full version of their side of the story. To read other sides of the story click here.
Blowing the whistle in self interest
Much has been written about the purported termination of Ceylon Today’s Director Editorial and Editor-in-Chief, Lalith Allahakkoon and the resignation of four other journalists on what they term as a matter of ‘editorial independence.’ Since Thursday 14 June, there had been round condemnation and prompt judgment delivered by the media fraternity and others based on one-sided information.
It is important to state at the very outset that Director Editorial and Editor-in-Chief, Lalith Allahakkoon, was not ‘sacked,’ despite the media frenzy and the four ex-staffers crying foul. He remains employed as is Deputy Editor Wasantha Siriwardena, whose Sunday cartoon is published on the same page.
Then there is the matter of four resignations ‘in protest of such sacking.’ The touted reason for the collective resignations was the alleged undermining of editorial independence in the alleged termination of Allahakkoon’s services. Suffice to say that their conduct within the editorial contributed to compartmentalizing the editorial, making it impossible to continue operations with their stranglehold. The management has warned one of them repeatedly on incompetence and creating divisions and during the final round of warnings (to three of the four resigned journalists), they were verbally informed about an internal inquiry.
