Vasana Wickremasena

Vasana is the Executive Director of the Centre for Integrated Communication Research and Advocacy in Sri Lanka and the Course Director of the Advanced Certificate Programme in Journalism at the Open University of Sri Lanka.

He is the first and only Sri Lankan member of the International Media Lawyers Association based in the Oxford University. He is also a member of the Global Working Group of Media Development Monitoring and Evaluation based in London. Some of his research assignments were commissioned by the UNDP, UNDDA, DFID, Clingeldale’ Institute, Netherlands and the Saferworld, UK. He is also the Media Consultant of the Enter-Growth, ILO.

A recognized academic in the field of social sciences, specialising in communication, Vasana is the Course Director for the Advanced Certificate Programme in Journalism at the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL), the university with biggest student population and countrywide infrastructure. He teaches development communication to the MA in Development Studies. He is also a visiting lecturer/examiner in political science and mass communication at the Department of Social Studies at the OUSL, and is the lecturer/examiner in Industrial and Business Law at the Department of Industrial Management at the University of Kelaniya.

Vasana is a qualified communications and media trainer. He is a trainer for the BBC World Service Trust for Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and the Internews Network headquartered in the USA. He is also a master trainer at the Media Research & Training Centre of the University of Jaffna in the war torn northern Sri Lanka. He was also a trainer for the Sri Lanka College of Journalism. He was the Sri Lankan Trainer for BBC World Service Trust for the Journalism Workshop for Senior Editors sponsored by UNICEF Sri Lanka in 2006. The workshop focused on child rights and media ethics.

An Oxford University trained media law advocate, Vasana’s specialty is in self-regulation and media ethics, and also in fundamental human rights and labour law. His submissions in a fundamental rights application led to Sri Lankan Supreme Court recognizing a child’s right to education for the first time in Sri Lanka in 2002. He was the Convener of the Code of Ethics Review Committee headed by Judge C.G. Weeramanthry – former Vice President of the International Court of Justice – and representing a group of eminent persons from the Sri Lankan civil society. The committee was appointed by the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka. He was the founder complaints officer (English language press) of the Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka and also responsible for drafting the rules and complaints procedure of the Dispute Resolution Council (DRC) of the watchdog set up by the newspaper industry.

Vasana was the deputy news editor of the Daily Mirror – a privately owned national daily in Sri Lanka (2000-2003) and a journalist at the Divaina – a local language privately owned daily and Sunday (1995-1998). During his career as a journalist, he has been awarded many awards including the Commonwealth Press Union’s prestigious Harry Brittain Fellowship and honourable mentioning as the Young Reporter of the Year Award twice at the annual awards night of the Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka. His reporting included a briefing by Velupillai Prabaharan, supreme leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the peace negotiations between the Government and the LTTE.

Vasana has an MA in Journalism from the Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines (2006), an LL.B from the University of Colombo (2001) and qualified as an Attorney-at-Law with honours from the Sri Lanka Law College (2000). His publications include Some Lessons in Disaster Coverage for Sri Lankan Professional Journalists (2005). He is currently authoring a book titled “Journalistic Ethics: A Sri Lankan Perspective”. He possesses first hand exposure to the communication industry in the USA, UK, South Africa, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

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