When great oaks fall
Monday 13rd November, 2023
Anyone’s death diminishes us. However, with apologies to Donne, we are diminished beyond measure when the veterans of the fourth estate depart. On Saturday (11), former editor of The Island Gamini Weerakoon crossed the Great Divide. His funeral took place yesterday. Our readers may recall the pivotal role he played in steering this newspaper through turbulent times, when independent journalism was a sufficient death warrant, demonstrating as he did his intrepidity and sangfroid.
Fondly known as Gamma to his fellow scribes, Weerakoon left Lake House in the early 1980s to join the team Upali Wijewardene handpicked to launch The Island. He played a key role in crafting a new brand of journalism, which quickly gained immense popularity. He succeeded Vijitha Yapa as the editor, and his was a memorably long innings in journalism. He elevated the quality and effectiveness of Sri Lankan journalism and inspired others to strive for similar levels of achievement.
Gamma excelled in editorial writing. He wrote beautifully, forcefully, and persuasively, and his no-holds-barred editorials were simply out of this world; they were loaded with facts and figures, which he clinically analysed with wit and humour thrown in for good measure; they contained very powerful messages that naturally made the conceited rulers of the day furious. The Island became a marked target as a result.
The Island came into being during an era when social media and independent radio/television news bulletins were unheard of. Dictatorial governments were determined to suppress the people’s right to information by muzzling the newspapers that refused to toe their line. The Opposition was too weak to act as an effective countervailing force against the repressive governments which unflinchingly resorted to unbridled political violence and election rigging; and the independent newspapers had to go above and beyond the call of duty to safeguard the interests of the public.
The Island bore the brunt of the fury of violent politicians who acted with impunity, but Gamma was not deterred. He would harden under pressure as all good journalists usually do. He together with his Divaina counterpart, Edmund Ranasinghe, and others of their calibre at UNL formed a band of typewriter guerrillas, as it were, to take on powerful governments, terrorist outfits and other evil forces. It was not occasionally that Gamma had a brush with those in authority. He had the pugnacity of a pugilist, and readily pitted himself against the pompous moneybags and self-important politicians, but he was a kind-hearted gentleman, whose integrity was never in question.
Having cut his teeth on journalism during the hot metal printing days, Gamma shepherded The Island into the digital age. He was a multifaceted personality, and his interests were numerous although he basically confined himself to international affairs, politics and economics, as a prolific writer.
He was one of the well-informed Asian editors who realised the importance of cooperation among newspapers in the region and the need to present news and views about Asia from the Asian perspective in a world dominated by western media agendas; to achieve that end, they founded the Asia News Network (ANN), which began as an association of nine media titles in 1999 but has grown to include 22 members based in the Asian capitals. The Island is the Sri Lankan partner of ANN. Gamma was also one of the founding members of the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka. He tenaciously campaigned for media freedom.
Gamma did not officially label himself as a media trainer but he mentored quite a few journalists during his UNL days, and many of them have joined other publications or pursued careers in media-related fields.Veteran scribes who have been enriching journalism for decades are like great oaks that leave lasting voids when they fall. Gamma was unarguably one of them.
