Colombo, Media and Communications

Interview with Manik de Silva, Editor of the Sunday Island

Manik de Silva is the most senior and longest-serving Editor of an English newspaper in Sri Lanka. Presently the Editor of the Sunday Island, Manik was also a former Editor of the Daily News. In July 2009, he was elected as the President of the Editors Guild.

I interviewed him in July 2009, just around two months after the end of war. Our conversation touched on aspects of Manik’s life and how he took to journalism, how the media industry and practice of journalism have undergone dramatic change in recent years, the freedom of expression and threats to independent media.