Despite having played a key role in toppling the Rajapaksa regime, this was the second time the web media was sidelined, the first being a meeting last September 18 attended by the president as well as prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

During the Rajapaksa administration, the mainstream media gave step-motherly treatment to the opposition, which only had websites and social media to carry its message to the people.

Opinion surveys revealed that 31 per cent of the voters at the election that elected Sirisena to presidency depended on the internet for their choice.

For television, it was 59 pc, while newspapers and the radio contributed mere 1 pc and 0.05 pc.

Ex-president Mahinda Rajapaksa has publicly admitted that websites and social media were responsible for his defeat.

Final warning

Meanwhile, the professional web journalists association has asked at a previous meeting with the PM not to mete out third class treatment for websites, as had been done by the previous government.

Presdient of the association Freddie Gamage told Sri Lanka Mirror that the PM had promised all privileges for web journalists.

Despite a promise given at a recent meeting by deputy media minister Karunaratne Paranavithana, news websites are yet to be invited to attend the cabinet and other government media briefings.

Gamage said they would write to the president and the MP, giving them a final notice on this matter.

President Sirisena has been in office for one year and three months now, but he is yet to grant a meeting for web journalists, he said.

Certain web journalists endangered their lives and were imprisoned while working to topple the Rajapaksa regime, he noted.

Shiral was the organizer

Meanwhile, SLM learns that the president’s coordinating secretary Shiral Lakthilake had organized the president’s media briefing.

During the Rajapaksa regime, he had liaised closely with the websites, but he too, has now forgotten them, several web journalists said.