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Media at fault
Since the much-publicised speech by the JVP propaganda secretary Wimal Weerawansa attacking the President, other UPFA members have had to defend the fragile Alliance image on other public forums such as TV political talk shows. Deputy Minister Sripathi Sooriyarachchi was on a show last Thursday when he was asked for his reaction to the JVP MP's speech. He didn't comment on the speech but instead went into say that Mr. Weerawansa had spoken for 35 minutes at the now famous "Desha Hithaishi" meeting at Ratnapura of which 33 minutes had been spent on attacking the UNP, but all TV stations including the state-run ones had only highlighted the two minutes where the President was mocked at. So it was once again all the fault of the media and the Alliance was on a sound footing.

A faux pas
At last Thursday's post-Cabinet press briefing, Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera displayed a Sinhala daily and strongly denied the main story in it calling it a blatant lie (patta pal boruwak). Then he turned his sights on a Tamil daily which carried a story saying the Peace Secretariat head Jayantha Dhanapala had quit and wanted a similar sentiment expressed about that story as well. He turned to the reporter representing the Tamil daily and asked him how to say "patta pal boruwak" in Tamil. Ironically he had asked the question from the same journalist who had written it. Only the Minister wasn't aware of it.

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