{"id":71385,"date":"2017-11-05T15:39:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-05T22:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=71385"},"modified":"2017-11-05T15:39:24","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T22:39:24","slug":"misleading-information-in-usa-publication-the-country-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/05\/misleading-information-in-usa-publication-the-country-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"MISLEADING INFORMATION IN USA PUBLICATION ,the country watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranjith Soysa, Spokesperson, GSLF<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

CountryWatch (www.countrywatch.com)\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0is the publisher of several country-specific \u00a0data and intelligence reports apparently for the use of corporations, government agencies, universities, schools, libraries and individuals and says it provides\u00a0 up-to-date news and information on each of the recognized countries of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

CountryWatch further claims that its management\u00a0<\/strong>has extensive international business experience\u201d while members of the editorial department have strong academic backgrounds.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 It also claims to provide critical\u201d country-specific intelligence data to a global audience including public and private sector organizations with overseas operations and global interests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reviewing the PDF online of 2017 Country Review on Sri Lanka\u201d\u00a0(Read:\u00a0<\/a>SL Country Watch<\/a>), we found\u00a0 misinformation, errors, and even some old data.<\/p>\n

As a publication aimed at the academic and business communities, CountryWatch should be judicious and objective in the content it presents.\u00a0 Yet, very strong bias against the former Rajapaksa administration runs through the pages.\u00a0 Uncorroborated, even false, reports used by Rajapaksa\u2019s political opponents to vilify the former president have found their way into this report.\u00a0 While editors are certainly entitled to their opinion, passing opinion and commentary as facts seriously undermines the integrity of any publication.<\/p>\n

In general, the publication lacks critical analysis, is not well organized,\u00a0 and is an assortment of material apparently culled from various sources, most of it not even related to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Page after page of general information under topics such as Environmental Overview\u201d pad the size of the publication but do nothing to enhance the Sri Lanka-specific knowledge its readers are likely seeking.<\/p>\n

The same could be said of the Editor\u2019s Note\u201d \u2013 which is repeated word for word\u00a0 on pages 2, 78, 122, & 145: adds pages, nothing else.<\/p>\n

The fact that President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s name has been misspelled (as Rajpaksa) 69 times throughout the report doesn\u2019t speak well for editorial oversight.<\/p>\n

We are politically unaffiliated and independent Sri Lankan expatriate groups.\u00a0 Our only purpose in putting the following detailed comments together is to correct inaccuracies and present facts omitted or misrepresented by CountryWatch. .<\/p>\n

Contributors:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Global Sri Lankan Forum Inc., Melbourne, Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sri Lanka-US Political Affairs Council (SLUPAC), California, USA<\/strong><\/p>\n

Comments may be sent to:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ranjith Soysa, Spokesperson, GSLF (ranbourne@gmail.com)<\/p>\n

Start reading critique on 2017 Country Review on Sri Lanka<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dismissing the record of a popular Asian leader as spurious\u201d \u2013 Page 76<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranjith Soysa, Spokesperson, GSLF Introduction CountryWatch (www.countrywatch.com)\u00a0\u00a0is the publisher of several country-specific \u00a0data and intelligence reports apparently for the use of corporations, government agencies, universities, schools, libraries and individuals and says it provides\u00a0 up-to-date news and information on each of the recognized countries of the world.\u201d CountryWatch further claims that its management\u00a0has extensive international business […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71385","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=71385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}