{"id":51450,"date":"2016-01-25T16:29:01","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T23:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=51450"},"modified":"2016-01-25T16:29:01","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T23:29:01","slug":"an-addition-to-part-2-of-the-content-analysis-of-sunday-times-editorials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/01\/25\/an-addition-to-part-2-of-the-content-analysis-of-sunday-times-editorials\/","title":{"rendered":"An addition to Part 2 of the content analysis of Sunday Times editorials"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>By Professor Shelton A. Gunaratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>My article titled <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/01\/12\/a-content-analysis-of-the-sunday-times-editorials-in-first-15-years-of-current-century-part-2-of-a-two-part-analysis\/\">A content analysis of The Sunday Times editorials in first 15 years of current century \u2013 Part 2 of a two-part analysis<\/a><\/strong>\u201d(Lankaweb, 12 January 2016) referred to 15 editorials in the non-stratified random sample I used to generalize my findings for the period 2000-2015. A technical glitch, however, cut off the synopses of six of the 15 editorials from the printed version. I reproduce below the missing synopses in chronological order to enable those who would have wanted to ascertain the reliability of the results by comparing the stratified (by year) and the non-stratified samples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>March 5, 2001: Home and away \u2026\u201d asserted the government has anything but efficient economic management on its mind\u201d despite the fairy tale voyages of a charming President [CBK] \u2026 basking in the warmth of the fond adulation of Western leaders.\u201d Citing an Asian Development Bank report that says almost 40 per cent of Sri Lanka&#8217;s population is either &#8220;poor or vulnerable to poverty,\u201d and a statement by World Bank Research Manager David Dollar that Sri Lanka and Pakistan are the only two non-globalizing\u201d countries in South Asia, the editorial said the country\u2019s plight is reflected not only in its economic indicators, but also in the general attitude and behavior on display by the PA power cabal\u201d as evident from the size of the Cabinet and the ostentatious campaigns to build a Presidential complex.<\/li>\n<li>July 15, 2001: Vox Populi I<strong>ndeed?<\/strong>\u201d contended that voters failed to comprehend the connection between president CBK\u2019s decision to prorogue parliament as a political maneuver to avoid the government\u2019s defeat and holding a national referendum that would cost the nation a massive Rs. 600 million to Rs. 1 billion.\u00a0 It asked: If the Government loses the referendum, does that mean that the Executive Presidency which the PA, UNP and the JVP are unitedly against, remains?\u201d\u00a0 This superbly written editorial asserted that the coupling of the prorogation with the referendum was tantamount to a political war-dance enacted by a moribund government.\u201d Thus, constitutional reform has become needlessly politicized and linked to the very survival of the government.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>August 4, 2002: What Next?\u201d sarcastically concluded that the Norwegian-mediated Ceasefire Agreement seems to have done its job well as far as the LTTE is concerned.\u201d Asserting that no talks have materialized since the signing of the agreement, it berated the Norwegian-led SLMM for engendering undesirable changes in the Eastern Province where the Muslim community fears the LTTE threat aimed at them, their property and their way of life\u201d resulting from the withdrawal of the SL security forces.\u00a0 It claimed that a nascent Muslim jihadi movement has begun raising funds for armed rebellion against the LTTE. It accused Sambandan\u2019s TNA was playing quisling to the LTTE,\u201d which is operating from the standpoint of a quasi state. It condemned the latest SLMM for referring to a &#8220;Balance of Power&#8221; in these areas of the Island implying a balance between two equal partners.<\/li>\n<li>March 7, 2004: LTTE Verdict on Dissent\u201d attacked the LTTE for shutting down dissent by following President Jayewardene\u2019s strategy of forcing all TNA candidates to sign their resignation letters before the election, then by banning all Tamils from contesting elections from any party outside of the TNA. The editorial surmised: They are trying to have the cake and eat it. They want their &#8216;puppets&#8217; and none else elected to Parliament at the Centre, and at the same time ensure that there is no dissent whatever to their rule in the North and East.\u201d Referring to the situation arising from the impending split within the LTTE in its Eastern command a\u00a0 veritable political land-mine in the Tiger den,\u201d the ST cautioned the two governments in Colombo to tread gingerly, if not astutely\u201d on the dangerous terrain.<\/li>\n<li>February 27, 2005: The UN Growls&#8211;But Does the Tiger Care?\u201d was another tirade against the Tigers on the issue of child soldiers whereon the LTTE has a consistently successful history of targeting the world at large &#8212; for its scorn.\u201d Commenting on the UN Security Council\u2019s listing of the LTTE as one of the terrorist organizations recruiting children and the Secretary General Kofi Annan\u2019s report that the LTTE has recruited 4,700 child soldiers since 2001 ceasefire agreement (not counting the 40 post-tsunami recruits), the editorial observed: To the seasoned arbiter, both the Security Council statement and the LTTE&#8217;s reaction to it sound as routine as the <em>pittu<\/em> served in Prabhakaran&#8217;s Vanni for breakfast.\u201d It blamed the insouciance of the UN for the Tigers\u2019 thumbs down for targeting them. It concluded: We can rest our case. By the time the UN &#8220;considers&#8221; its sanctions, the LTTE would be recruiting its new batch of baby-brigadiers.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>October 22, 2006: Development with Devolution\u201d supported the ruling of the Supreme Court that the merger of the North-East Provincial Council is ultra-vires (outside the law) of the Constitution.\u201d It branded the merger as one of the biggest political shams in the country \u2026 a classic lesson of how a system of government, forced down the throat of the nation has had a life of its own in areas it was not meant for.\u201d It described the 19 years of the existence of NEP Council as a contradiction of what devolution (power to the periphery) is all about.\u201d It occupied almost a quarter of the whole country and was a contradiction of what devolution (power to the periphery) is all about.\u201d The ST claimed that the PC system has\u00a0 proved to be an utterly useless exercise merely duplicating the work of the Central Government and local councils.\u201d\u00a0 It made its position absolutely clear: We have long argued that the District ought to be the unit of devolution citing the examples of the US, Canada, India, Australia etc., though federalism is an exercise in futility given their sheer size in comparison to Sri Lanka.\u201d It went on to assert: While there still might be other viable alternatives that could be discussed at any future peace talks, they cannot revolve around the PC system which has failed to take off in the North and East and come a cropper in the rest of Sri Lanka as well.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[I consider this editorial to be one of the best written by a national newspaper in Sri Lanka providing a dispassionate solution to the country\u2019s ethnic, political and developmental problems.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Professor Shelton A. Gunaratne My article titled A content analysis of The Sunday Times editorials in first 15 years of current century \u2013 Part 2 of a two-part analysis\u201d(Lankaweb, 12 January 2016) referred to 15 editorials in the non-stratified random sample I used to generalize my findings for the period 2000-2015. A technical glitch, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shelton-gunaratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}