News First
Sri Lankan broadcaster and digital news outlet operated by Maharaja Organisation. Publishes breaking news and current affairs in English alongside its Sinhala and Tamil television channels.
News First at a glance
- Country
- Sri Lanka
- Region
- South Asia · Asia
- Kind of outlet
- Television news channel
- Editorial leaning
- Centrist
- Website
- newsfirst.lk ↗
- Preview
- Renders inside Crosswire's comparison panes (last checked 2026-09-14).
The preview status comes from the weekly audit that requests every outlet through Crosswire's own edge — see how the fetcher identifies itself.
News First front page, right now
A live, light-mode preview of today's News First homepage, rendered through Crosswire. Use the language selector in the header to translate it into your language.
Is News First left-leaning, right-leaning or centrist?
Crosswire lists News First as Center within Sri Lanka's media spectrum — the grouping it uses both for genuinely centrist titles and for outlets the major media-bias assessments do not place consistently on one side.
Read News First beside another title from Sri Lanka and the differences show up fastest in what leads the page. Broadcast newsrooms build around what can be shown and who can be booked, so News First's online front page tends to track its on-air running order — watch which stories carry video and which are text-only. Because News First is listed near the centre, it works best as the fixed point in a comparison — put a left- and a right-leaning title from Sri Lanka either side of it and the direction each one pulls becomes measurable rather than impressionistic.
This is an approximate orientation, not a definitive judgement — and not a rating of quality or accuracy. Read how Crosswire classifies editorial leanings, including the sources behind each label. Directory last reviewed . Think this label is wrong? Suggest a correction.
Where News First sits in Sri Lanka's press
News First is one of 6 outlets tracked in Sri Lanka, and one of 2 television news channels among them — the other being Ada Derana. By outlets tracked, Sri Lanka ranks seventh of the 33 countries on Crosswire's Asia hub, which lists 169 outlets in all.
Across Asia, Crosswire tracks 12 of the 66 television news channels in the directory. The nearest counterparts to News First outside Sri Lanka, starting with South Asia, are Channel NewsAsia (Singapore), GMA News (Philippines), Democratic Voice of Burma (Myanmar) and NDTV (India). Opening one of them beside News First is the quickest way to see what is a house style and what is a national one.
Other news outlets in Sri Lanka
Browse and compare more sources from the same country.
Centrist outlets around the world
Outlets with a similar editorial orientation to News First, in other countries.
Explore other countries
Jump to another country's front pages on Crosswire.
Reading the news critically
The vocabulary and the method behind these comparisons.