Most of the vernacular newspapers, in their lead stories, focused heavily on the murder of a 48 year old woman in Kotakethana, Kahawatte yesterday.

This was in the wake of the criticism that the vernacular newspapers were strongly gravitating towards stories based on crimes and sex.

Mawbima, Ada and Dinamina were among the vernacular publications that gave undue prominence to the Kotakethana murder. However, the largest selling Sinhala daily Lankadeepa refrained from carrying it as the lead story of the day.

However, English newspapers reported the incident in a responsible manner, carrying it as a page one story, but without sensationalizing the crime.