Sri Lanka’s Media Is Not the Judge or Jury — Nor Does It Have a Mandate to Humiliate, Convict, or Condemn Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay

 

 

The public has every right to ask difficult questions about the Easter Sunday attacks and demand answers. Most importantly the victims, their families deserve truth, accountability & justice. In this framework media has an important role to play. Journalists must highlight the failures, expose inconsistencies, question institutions and examine those in positions of authority during the attacks. These are all facets of a functioning democracy. But there are some ethical lines that cannot be crossed.

 

The media is not the Police

The media is not the CID or the TID

The media is not the Attorney General’s Dept

The media is most certainly not the Judiciary, the Judge or the Jury.

 

Yet, increasingly sections of Sri Lanka’s media in particular the social media are moving beyond reporting into something far more dangerous – narrative adjudication.

 

Following Sri Lanka’s Easter attacks, multiple investigations, commissions, intelligence reviews, parliamentary committees, debates, arrests indictments & public debates have been taking place. Successive governments began opening separate investigations too. As such conflicting theories, different narratives competed for dominance. Facts were often pushed aside, while sensationalism replaced restraint.

 

Considering the legal complexities, it is unfortunate that even members of the State legal apparatus are playing politics in the manner of their submissions to Magistrates whereby they too are seen advancing narratives that influence the public without justifications.

 

Moreover, it is equally troublesome to see how certain members of numerous social media channels have in their hands key data pertaining to cases wherein no sooner they are taken up in courts they issue commentaries as “hot news”.

How have they secured “insider information”?

 

The issue becomes even more serious when examining how sections of the media are treating Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay.

 

Maj. Gen. Suresh Sallay was reportedly arrested without a warrant. Questions have also been raised regarding denial of immediate access to legal counsel, concerns relating to his treatment while in custody, and the broader implications for due process and fundamental rights. Yet, how many media institutions treated these issues with the same urgency and outrage repeatedly displayed when amplifying allegations against him?

 

How many media channels seriously questioned whether allegations alone are sufficient to publicly portray an individual as the “mastermind” of the Easter Sunday attacks before evidence has been tested in court?

How many questioned the evidentiary basis of claims made to foreign media platforms, including whether those making allegations could even establish key factual assertions regarding meetings, timelines, locations, or operational links?

 

How many questioned how an individual could be publicly framed as a central conspirator in matters relating to periods during which he was allegedly outside the country or not serving in operational command, intelligence oversight, or military decision-making capacities connected to the attacks?

 

Instead, portions of the media have allocated extensive airtime and emotionally charged programming towards constructing psychological certainty in the minds of the public — repeatedly presenting implication, suspicion, and narrative framing in ways that encourage audiences to emotionally conclude guilt long before any court of law has established it through tested evidence.

 

This is not responsible journalism.

This is the danger of narrative conditioning replacing due process.

 

Unknowingly the public are the subject of experimentation.

They are repeatedly fed speculations that turn to assumptions.

Before legal standards are applied, the storyline sold to the public becomes perceived as ‘evidence’.

This is where journalism has transformed into trial.

The process is not only dangerous it is political & psychological.

 

One of the most recognized psychological phenomena applicable here is the Illusory Truth Effect — the tendency for people to gradually believe a claim simply because they hear it repeatedly.

This becomes accepted as truth inspite of evidence disputing such.

When national tragedies occur the effect is devastating.

 

The public is repeatedly exposed to:

• the same names,
• the same theories,
• the same imagery,
• the same emotional framing,
• and the same narrative emphasis.

Over time, repetition itself begins creating psychological certainty.

Not surprisingly, the same persons are masters at spreading these narratives.

 

Framing Effect is another concept used widely by media – by manipulating the information presented to influence audience to interpret what media wants audience to accept.  Media does this by playing on the emotions of people and their personal hate or envy.

 

For example – describing an individual as a “suspect” “mastermind” creates very different psychological responses especially when media links it to a political party / politicians people are made to hate. This perception is built long before a court has reached final conclusions.

 

Another feature that media manipulates is the Confirmation Bias that human mind is vulnerable to – tendency to favor information that reinforces existing beliefs while unconsciously filtering out contradictory information. Audiences are repeatedly exposed to one dominant narrative framework, alternative interpretations or evidentiary complexities are given less or no space. The manner the media presenter address individuals is another giveaway. Emotion alters judgement.

 

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Psychological studies on Priming show that emotionally charged exposure affects later interpretation and decision-making.

 

Easter Sunday has had people emotionally charged with narratives that borders on hate & emotion not logic and evidence.

 

This is why democratic societies created courts of law.

 

Courts exist because human beings are emotional.
Courts exist because repetition is persuasive.
Courts exist because public opinion is vulnerable to psychological influence.

If media were the Courts – many innocent people would have received death sentence.

 

A criminal court requires evidence tested under law.
It requires admissible material, cross-examination, procedural safeguards, and proof beyond reasonable doubt.

 

Media operates differently.

They function through speed, emotional engagement, narrative coherence, audience retention, repetition, public reaction and hyped sensationalism.

 

That does not automatically make journalism irresponsible or ethical.

But it becomes dangerous when unresolved allegations are amplified so persistently that public familiarity gradually replaces evidentiary caution.

 

Repetition is not evidence.

Public exposure repeatedly to a theory media and other parties wish to promote does not transform it into judicial fact.

Emotional conviction is not legal conviction.

 

Sri Lanka’s media and vested parties are using Easter Sunday terror attacks to generate public demand for a singular villain, a hidden mastermind, or a simple explanation capable of emotionally resolving collective trauma erasing all the factual evidence in place.

 

When media compress investigation complexities into singular emotionally dominant narratives before legal finality exists, they risk distorting public understanding itself.

 

The danger is not merely reputational harm to individuals. The deeper danger is institutional.

If extremist networks continue to exist, national attention cannot remain fixated solely on constructing politically convenient narratives around individuals while ignoring the broader security realities that may still pose danger.

 

When media begin constructing public guilt independently of judicial process, the line between journalism and adjudication begins to erode.

This weakens public trust not only in the courts, but in the concept of due process itself. We can see this happening.

 

Sri Lanka does not need less journalism.
Sri Lanka needs more responsible journalism.

 

Journalism must investigate fearlessly — but it must also respect the distinction between raising questions and delivering verdicts.

 

A terrorist threat that was ignored resulted in catastrophic loss of life. If extremist networks or operational structures continue to exist, national attention cannot remain fixated solely on constructing politically convenient narratives around individuals while ignoring the broader security realities that may still pose danger.

 

The Easter Sunday tragedy should not become a permanent theatre of speculative conviction based on biases of media owners or funding parties, where repetition substitutes for proof and emotional saturation substitutes for judicial determination.

Courts exist for a reason.

 

Because in any democratic society, guilt cannot be established through volume, repeated airtime, emotional persuasion, narrative dominance or building hatred for individuals.

 

Sri Lanka’s media has a vital role in protecting democracy.
But democracy is not protected when journalism begins functioning as prosecutor, judge, and jury simultaneously.

 

Justice must ultimately rest on evidence tested under law — not on whichever narrative is repeated the loudest.

If media must act responsibly – the people watching/listening to media must act equally responsibly as well.

 

 

 

Shenali D Waduge