The Home Ministry has issued a warning to ‘media practitioners’ to follow guidelines set by the government soon after it rescinded its recent decision to block the highly popular Malaysia Today website, an unpopular move that was criticised by critics and concerned Malaysians.
Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said, ‘Most importantly, while we want freedom and openness, we must also bear the responsibility as Malaysians to ensure peace and public order and prevent people from inciting and humiliating others and breaking the law.
‘So, it is a warning or a reminder and after it has been served, I hope it will raise the awareness because the power of the media be it blogs, in print or electronic to influence the society in general is very deep and significant.’
The ministry, he added, had also ’served show-cause letters to several media firms bent on creating tension among the people’.
Wait a sec. Is the Minister trying to imply that these ‘media practitioners’ were the ones responsible of late in ‘inciting and humiliating others’? Hmm, this is strange. I thought that the media merely reported what certain individuals said and did in public which, in turn, created uneasiness and hurt in society — as well as public reaction to their (the individuals concerned) actions.
Isn’t this tantamount to an attempt to metaphorically kill the messenger for the message that has been transmitted to the general public?
Or could it be that he’s merely refering to a certain mainstream newspaper that had allegedly published of late a kind of reporting that could stoke up ethnic and religious sentiments?
By the way, it appears that the Minister, in issuing his latest warning, had placed blogs on par with the mainstream media as far as their influence on society — which ‘is very deep and significant’ — is concerned.
