How will the media cover Permatang Pauh?

All eyes obviously are now on Permatang Pauh, the place where de facto leader of PKR, Anwar Ibrahim, is scheduled to contest in a forthcoming by-election.

This is because the stakes are high in this expected stiff contest, the outcome of which may well chart a new course for SS Malaysia Enterprise. 

All eyes would also be focused on the entire media machinery that is expected to descend upon this little place to report the goings-on for the benefit of those who are not there and those who live elsewhere in the world.

Interested and concerned Malaysians (including, possibly, the likes of former special adviser to the United Nations secretary-general on ethics, Tunku Abdul Aziz) would also observe the country’s mainstream media to see whether they would perform professionally, report in a fair and balanced manner things that are associated with the by-election, the candidates and the issues raised during the election campaign.

And no less important is to see whether the media would adhere to the principle of the right of reply for the affected parties.

It is in this larger context that Information Minister Shabery Cheek’s ‘assurance’ of fair and professional reporting of the by-election on the part of RTM and other mainstream media should be seen. This ‘assurance’ was reported by Bernama.

While this ‘ministerial pledge’ can be perceived as something that we should welcome, it however can constitute a governmental interference into the daily affairs of news management of media organisations, especially when we are reminded of what the minister had said not too long ago about the government not meddling in news selection. It was reported by Bernama here, an extract of which is published below:

Govt Never Meddle In News Selection – Shabery

Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek said the government has never meddled in the selection of news items by the media including those by Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM).

 

He said the media was free to decide on the priority and never directed for certain news to be carried or which should be dropped.

 

“We want the media to think what is news value. I have never directed on what news to be given priority or not and leave it to RTM and the other media to find decide on the priority,” he said after presenting prizes at the international Mandarin debating competition here tonight.

Surely the supposedly independent media organisations do not need to wait for a ministerial ‘cue’, much less directive, before carrying out their proper role as credible and responsible media outfit.

 

Debating democracy

The government, according to a Bernama report, is mulling over the possibility of holding ‘debates as a platform for discussing and explaining issues to enable people to understand the issues’.

Yes, it would be great if these televised debates become a permanent feature in Malaysia. But wait a second! 

Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek also has a different idea about holding such debates. He feels that these debates would help prevent ‘certain quarters from holding protests or demonstrations which would worsen a situation’.

Looks like the honorable minister has overlooked the fact that peaceful protests and demonstrations come with the package called democracy. Surely debates are not promoted in lieu of peaceful demonstrations. In the United States, if one were to take that country as an example, you get televised debates as well as street demonstrations.

If we need reminding, in a democracy there should be not only freedom of expression, but also freedom of assembly and of association.

Public debates certainly are valuable in a democracy because, as the minister rightly pointed out, they provide a useful space in which the ordinary citizens are expected to get a better understanding of a particular issue being discussed by politicians and others.

That said, we must also not forget that the ordinary citizens also have the democratic right to express their own views on issues that they consider important via the mass media. Citizens cannot afford to be mere spectators on the sideline.

This is why people in a democracy must have equal access to the media, apart from other social institutions, so that they can engage themselves, directly or otherwise, in the democratic process.

This form of participatory democracy is crucial to ensure that civil society groups and other stakeholders — not just politicians — are involved in deciding how their society ought to be run in the most effective and just manner possible.