Three Great Editors: Mervyn, Gamma and Ajith

Journalism Awards for Excellence – 25th Anniversary

by Dayan Jayatilleka, PhD

(Reproduced from the souvenir for 25th Journalism Awards for Excellence ceremony to be held today.)

MERVYN

Mervyn de Silva

has been described as “the greatest journalist that Sri Lanka ever produced” (Radhika Coomaraswamy, 2001). Furthermore, “… [Mervyn’s] literary critical writing…and his affirmative humanism that grew from it enriched the world of journalism in Sri Lanka as no one else has done.” (Godfrey Gunatilleke, 2005).

Mervyn began as a free-lancer, joined the profession as a cub-reporter, became Deputy Editor, Observer, and reached the top as Editor Daily News and Editor-in-Chief. Choosing to remain in Sri Lanka declining lucrative job offers in journalism overseas, he made his mark in the elite international media as Colombo’s correspondent for the BBC, The Economist (London), the Financial Times (London), Times of India and India Today.

An unmatched achievement in Sri Lanka, Mervyn became the Editor-in-Chief of the two largest, rival journalistic establishments of the day: Lake House and The Times Group.

He was not only a print journalist, but also a veteran radio journalist, a broadcaster with programmes on literature (‘Off My Bookshelf’) and foreign affairs, running for decades. He also had a world affairs programme on Rupavahini TV in which he was the ‘talking head’ interviewed by Eric Fernando.

He wrote influentially on national politics while it was widely acknowledged that “No one was more aware of international affairs than Mervyn de Silva…one of the pioneer intellectuals of non-alignment” (Radhika Coomaraswamy 2001).

In print journalism he excelled in diverse roles, as a critic on literature and film, as columnist from his earliest days in journalism, ‘Daedalus’ being his first penname, ‘The Outsider’ the second, and ‘Kautilya’ his last. An authoritative and memorably stylish editorialist, he was also a subversively satirical columnist (and occasional versifier).

In a singular honour, in 1971Mervyn de Silva spent a month in DC working with the legendary Foreign Editor of the Washington Post, Phil Foisie, at the end of which a think-piece by Mervyn was given a rare full-page spread in The Washington Post (1971).

He also authored two Editorial page pieces in the International Herald Tribune (1986). In a ‘world scoop’ he broke the story on the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord (1987) in the Financial Times. Prime Minister Premadasa first came to know of the Accord reading Mervyn in the FT in Tokyo.

Published in and broadcast by the elite Western media, he was also a Vice-President of the International Organization of Journalists (IOJ), the vast network of Soviet bloc and Nonaligned journalists, a rare personification of the confluence of two contending currents and traditions in international journalism: Western liberal-democrat and Socialist/Third World.

His passionate adherence to the highest international standards of journalism and editorship saw him removed from his post twice, by two ideologically antipodal Governments—Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s and JR Jayewardene’s.

Having reached the apex in mainstream newspaper journalism, Mervyn founded a progressive magazine, repeating his achievement this time in ‘alternative periodical journalism’ as publisher/ founder-editor of the Lanka Guardian.

Mervyn was referred to in the world press as Sri Lanka’s Hassanein Heikal, Nasser’s friend and legendary editor of Al-Ahram (Cairo), and Sri Lanka’s Nikhil Chakravartty, iconic editor of Mainstream (Delhi).

GAMMA

Gamini Weerakoon

, universally known as Gamma, was Sri Lanka’s greatest wartime editor. Unlikely as it may seem, when I look in long retrospect, there was a flicker of that potential already discernible when I first saw him in the early 1970s.

As Editor, Daily News, and Editor-in-Chief, Lake House, Mervyn de Silva (and wife Lakshmi) hosted two parties annually: one, drinks and dinner for the staffers of the English-language Lake House press and foreign journalists in town; the other, cocktails for the diplomatic corps—the former at the private hall upstairs of the Chinese Lotus Hotel in Colpetty, the latter at the Galle Face Hotel. As precocious only son barely in his teens (and long trousers), I was present at the first event.

Gamma Weerakoon, tall, ginger-bearded, gravelly voiced, was a singularly imposing physical presence in the corner by the open windows, holding court amidst a crowd of journos shaking with laughter. As I edged closer I got what it was all about: Gamma had a non-stop stream of stories, mimicry and punchlines which were as unprintably salacious as they were undeniably hilarious. What remained in the mind—apart from a wicked imitation of an Indian cricket commentary—was the man’s personality. You could never ignore him.

“I learned from the best” Gamma told me at my father’s funeral in 1999, referring to his Editors/bosses. If Mervyn, behind his editorial desk, always in suit-and-tie, jacket slung on his chair-back, the most stylishly attired of Sri Lankan Editors, was a respected boss and remote father figure for journalists, Gamma in his rolled sleeves, always accessible in the newsroom –the ‘shopfloor’ so to speak– was the elder brother figure. His inimitable leadership style as Editor was already incubating.

Mervyn had left mainstream journalism in 1978 and founded the fortnightly Lanka Guardian magazine. A journal was a more conducive vehicle for critical inquiry about the larger Lankan crisis. Making a comeback having been sacked by Sirimavo and JR, founding and sustaining a periodical which immediately had high visibility and impact, made Mervyn a legend once again, but Gamma’s challenge as Editor of a relatively new mainstream newspaper was equally if differently demanding.

Vijitha Yapa, The Island’s first editor was also an outstanding wartime editor but he quit journalism to establish his famous bookstore. Gamma was on the frontlines every day, in the journalistic trenches, giving leadership during decades of civil wars and foreign military intervention.

The task of the editor of a state-run newspaper was simple in wartime. Gamma wasn’t one. He captained a privately-owned paper which had to maintain credibility as it reported the news, took editorial stands, published diverse commentary. A strong man, he was the courageous editor of a combative newspaper which provided an indispensable space for sovereignty and freedom, democracy and order against all comers, during the most massively violent period of our history in a century.

AJITH

Ajith Samaranayake’s

entry into professional journalism was facilitated by the LSSP theoretician Hector Abhayavardhana, but well before he joined Lake House, he had been published in the prestigious editorial page of the Ceylon Daily News by Mervyn de Silva. That first foray in the early 1970s was a perfectly written little piece, the title of which caught the eye of the editor who was always sympathetic to the off-beat, provided it was well-written. Ajith wrote unforgettably on ‘Why I Failed the A-levels Three Times’.

The next time Ajith caught Mervyn’s eye was in 1976, when I had pointed out to him a report at the bottom of the Daily Observer’s front page, on a ‘Sweep-Ticket Seller’. It was a mini-masterpiece of a ‘human interest story’. Mervyn called in Ajith and gave him a regular slot and larger responsibility which opened his pathway eventually to the Editor’s chair of The Island and the Sunday Observer respectively.

Several things distinguished Ajith as a journalist and Editor. He apprenticed with those who belonged to the first post-Independence generation of the intelligentsia and journalism (like Mervyn), but was himself of a younger generation than most of his colleagues, which meant he was socialised, formed, in a different time of The island’s history, had a different vantage-point and brought to bear different perspective.

Born in 1954, Ajith grew up not only in post-1956, but also post-1971 Sri Lanka. Though he had been mentored by highly literate left and liberal minds of an older generation, Ajith filtered that knowledge through the very different collective experience of his tormented generation and let his considerable reading illumine that experience. Ajith’s sensibility was shaped by engagement with the bilingual arts, politics, writings, reflections and personalities of our contemporary history.

He was a bridge that brought the work of the Sinhala-educated intelligentsia, especially the cultural intelligentsia, to the attention of the readers of mainstream English-language newspapers, while he enriched the endogenous intelligentsia by bringing to bear the best of western (including Marxist) literary criticism to the evaluation of their work.

In that sense Ajith was carrying on the pioneering cross-cultural criticism of Charles Abeysekara and Sarath Amunugama.

Ajith Samaranayake was primarily a cultural critic in whose contributions as journalist and Editor, the socio-cultural dimension bulked large.

His superb ‘situating’ of personalities past, made Regi Siriwardena dub him ‘the prince of obituarists’.

One of Ajith’s acts as Editor, The Island was to give the forgotten but influential radical literary critic and lecturer at the University of Kelaniya, Ranjith Gunawardena, a half-page column on writers and criticism, which ran into a series of several dozen articles.

Tragically, an inescapable aspect of journalistic culture universally, proved to be Ajith’s undoing. Mervyn and Gamma introduced him to the bars where he met the journalistic fraternity. A heavy but self-controlled drinker, Mervyn never touched local booze even as a reporter, while Gamma had a boxer or ruggerite’s physique to absorb anything he drank. Ajith, frail, never had the stamina but could never kick the habit. It took him on a downward spiral to the lower depths, once too often.