On tears newsworthy and otherwise, wept and denied

Some years ago, when the LTTE butchered over 60 innocent people including little children in Kebitigollewa, certain newspapers and media institutions, both local and foreign, deliberately played the incident down. This prompted the National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT) to publish a short but telling essay about media practice and ethics titled ‘Some tears are not newsworthy’.

The exercise was simple. It was a matter of comparing and contrasting reportage and commentary on incidents of similar or lesser magnitude in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. BBC, Ravaya and the Sunday Leader, if I remember right, came out as the worst offenders in terms of balance, sensitivity and double-standards.

That was a time when there was a concerted effort by vested interests to put spin on incident to either whitewash the LTTE and/or vilify the Government as per political preference. The tears of Sinhalese were not considered to be newsworthy; they didn’t have currency in the bleeding-heart market.

Tears we will always have since sorrow is one of those eternal verities we all encounter and find difficult to handle. On the other hand there are tears and the ones I am referring to are made of allegations and denials.

A wild blast

It all happened when a man called Sarath Fonseka tripped over a curious booby trap of his own making, composed of the anxiety, venom and incoherence that we are learning marks the man as much as or more than anything else. It happened when he gave an interview to the Sunday Leader, in accordance, Frederica Jansz tells us, with that newspapers decision to back his candidature. Fonseka in a wild blast he thought was aimed at the Defence Secretary (a man to whom he owes much in terms of career advancement and for providing opportunity for enrichment) shot the county’s dignity and stature to pieces.

According to Frederica, Fonseka had been forced by his advisors to retract the statement. Fonseka, true to form, reiterated the statement a few days later. The rub lies elsewhere though. The JVP bungled things further. This is how Frederica analyses it.

‘They (the JVP) first pushed him (Fonseka) into the devastating half retraction but having done that they realized that a retraction wasn’t enough and that to prove that he never said what he did actually say, he would have to sue. Understandably the General is reluctant to sue as he is unable to honestly deny he made those comments. The General’s reluctance compelled the JVP to resort to new muckraking tactics, and they began to claim that the article was the result of a conspiracy between The Sunday Leader and the Rajapaksas.’

The worst blunder was when the JVP claimed that Frederica had wept and begged Fonseka for forgiveness. Frederica says, ‘Personally I’m not much given to tears and the JVP’s and Sarath Fonseka’s troubles are definitely not going to move me to tears any time soon.’

So we have two stories here. The JVP claims that Frederica wept. Frederica says ‘nonsense!’. Someone is lying and I think it is not Frederica because she has less to lose than the JVP and because she has shown she has the guts to say things as she sees them regardless of divergence with the sentiments of her employers and their political masters.

JVP’s survival game

The JVP is now a two-bit political player playing the survival game. They will cling to anything, even a ‘straw’, as Fonseka has been described by a columnist in the Sunday Leader (who thinks he has renaissance credentials but has a penchant for adding two and two and getting to 55 so frequently that he should seek membership in the JVP).

Who will tell us the truth? Why, Mr. Fonseka would! He alone knows who is lying. Now this man, who a lot of people believe is some kind of saint who has done no wrong, can surely be relied on to give a straight answer, right? Well, I am not going to bet on it after he has flip-flopped on this story so many times that he probably doesn’t know whether he is coming or going.

Let’s try it though. Here’s a small note for Mr. Fonseka.

Dear General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka,

Your JVP friends have alleged that Frederica Jansz of the Sunday Leader had wept at your feet and begged you for forgiveness. The lady maintains that she did not and that she doesn’t give a damn about the troubles of ‘Fonseka and the JVP’.

Since you portray yourself as an officer and a gentlemen, could you please clarify matters for us? Did Frederica indeed genuflect and weep? If not, would you please come out and say that the JVP deliberately lied?

Or will you, like any two-bit politician, play politics and mumble something so incoherent that you could be saying anything, everything or nothing? Do you understand that if that is the course of action you choose, you are not the ‘change’ candidate you make yourself out to be, that you are like Barack Obama only in slogan but that in act you are like Sarah Palin?

Here’s a golden opportunity for you, Sir. You could come out and engage in straight talk. Or else you could mumble sweet nothings. Either way you will be saying a lot about what kind of man you are and one supposes this is important in your campaign.

Yours truly, Malinda.

As for the JVP, they are yet to respond to Frederica. Wonder why?

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