Two parliamentary journalists of a leading Sinhala daily newspaper have been summoned before the Committee on Ethics and Privileges in connection with an incident of publishing false news in a way that brings disgrace to all the Members of Parliament.
This complaint was made by Member of Parliament Mr. Jayantha Katagoda regarding a newspaper article published in the same newspaper on March 09, 2022 under the headline “MP’s panic due to short supply of fresh milk in parliament’s canteen” (“මැතිසබේ කැන්ටිමේ දියර කිරි හිඟවී මන්ත්රීවරු යකා නටති”).
The MP Katagoda said that through this false news, hatred has been created in the public towards the entire Parliament and MPs.
The director of the Parliament’s Food and Housekeeping Department had also been summoned before the committee.
Here he said that he had made an inquiry about this and that there was no information about any such incident.
Thus, it appears that the publication of false information has damaged the honour of the entire Parliament, and the need for senior journalists to engage in reporting more responsibly has been pointed out yesterday (04).
The Parliamentary Communication Unit announced that the two parties agreed to resolve this without judicial action.
Accordingly, a statement expressing regret for the publication of this false information is to be published in the relevant newspaper within two weeks, giving the same publicity as the previous news, and a copy thereof is to be sent to the Secretary General of the Parliament within a week, and also agreeing to refrain from publishing such defamatory false statements against the Parliament or MPs in the future. The committee chairman said that this would be settled subject to conditions.
He also ordered to inform the editor-in-chief of the newspaper in writing to take care of this matter.