The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 01 Dec 2011 04:40 PM PST DEC 2 — I had listened to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's Malaysia Day address with scepticism. Part of the scepticism came after noticing all the qualifications made by the prime minister in the same speech. The so-called Political Transformation Programme does not look so bold if one reads the fine print. As we have learned in recent days, the actual reform does not meet the high expectations set by the prime minister himself. The manner at which the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2011 was rushed through did little to alleviate the scepticism. In these days of scepticism, only actions command confidence. The nearly six years of the Abdullah administration justifies that attitude. The bravado of Parti Keadilan Rakyat only adds to the justification of scepticism. Indeed, political scepticism against all sides is a sign of maturity of ordinary voters. While the scent of scepticism was strong, not all shared it. Not all ordinary voters are seasoned political observers after all. Many young Malaysians celebrated the announced reforms as if reform had already happened. And then there are other not-so-young Malaysians who willingly assume things in good faith. Because of this, the Najib administration gained some immediate political capital. That was about three months ago. However significant the political capital was, time is eroding it. The power of words can last only so long. The longer it goes unsupported by action, the less credible it becomes. Words are cheap. In order to arrest the scepticism and to ensure that the liberalisation exercise will translate into votes for Barisan Nasional, the promised changes will have to be instituted before the next federal election. Action is required, hence the rushing of the Bill. Within a week, the Bill was read twice. Members of Parliament were expected to read the Bill thoroughly, consult experts as well as their constituents and then debate it intelligently within the span of a few days. That was nothing less than an ambush on the liberal camp. The ungodly rush suggests something else as well: the federal election is coming sooner rather than later. It suggests the tentative election date has been set and all Bills need to be passed before that deadline. If that is indeed the case, then the election presents a perverse incentive for the government to act based on a misunderstanding of criticism against the previous illiberal laws. It must be highlighted that the criticism is against the spirit of the previous laws, and not against the laws per se. With the Peaceful Assembly Bill retaining the old illiberal spirit, it is no different from the old laws. To cite another example relating back to the Malaysia Day speech, the replacement of the Internal Security Act will still grant the government the power to detain a person without trial. Yet, the main criticism against the ISA was exactly the detention without trial feature. So, what exactly will the substantive change be? One gets the impression that the government thinks all that is wrong is the names and the initials of a certain set of laws. Change the names and the initials to something more cheery and they expect the criticism will go away. That is a gross misunderstanding. Based on that, the government would think that rushing the Peaceful Assembly Bill and other related ones will win it votes. No, it will not. A substantive-minded government would take a more measured pace by making the Bill and others to come go through a thorough deliberative process. That possibly means pushing the next election as far as possible into the future and holding it only after a much improved Bill is ready for passing. The reverse — setting the election date first and then targeting to pass the Bills before that date — will result in farcical Bills. A rushed farcical Bill benefits no one. The voters will see through the farce and BN will not win any extra votes from it. BN in fact would lose votes because new voters and those who assumed good faith would think the ruling coalition has taken them for fools. Meanwhile, Malaysians will not see any improvement in their civil liberties. In the end, what was the point of rushing it? * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 01 Dec 2011 04:26 PM PST DEC 2 — Corruption was the topic of discussion on the evening programme of my favourite local radio station, BFM, yesterday while I was stuck in traffic. They were talking about corruption relating to the country's governance and law enforcement. I had my opinions on that but that's not really what I want to write about here. The discussion on the programme really got me thinking about corruption in my profession, which is journalism and the media. I'm sure most of you readers would have heard about the recent controversy involving the BBC and the Malaysian government. The BBC was found to have breached its editorial guidelines by broadcasting paid-for programming that was promoting the Malaysian government. This act would be considered by many, me included, as unethical and corrupt. It involves money and it is misleading. Am I right? But I am also sure that many would disagree and their argument would be that there are many news media organisations that take advertising and sponsorship money. From my perspective, I strongly believe that news and journalistic content should never be corrupted by money, and this includes advertising and sponsorship money. My argument is that money is the root of all evil and, hence, when it comes to journalistic content, money can influence the way this content is portrayed. And if money becomes such a big influence, the content may be compromised and not be credible (read: honest) at all. For the sake of proving a point, let me give you a simple example. Let's say a newspaper has a car review section and it also accepts automobile advertisements. Let's say that the latest car in the market is a Proton Saga and the newspaper decides to write a review of the car so their readers can be better informed. Let's say that the newspaper will also be running advertisements paid for by Honda. Wouldn't that mean that Honda now wields a certain amount of influence? Wouldn't that mean that Honda can now dictate how the review of the new Proton Saga model should be? The influence may even be as indirect as the fear that Honda might pull out their advertising money if a positive review was published. Journalistic content is compromised. So in my honest opinion, I think that all news media organisations should never accept advertising or sponsorship money because it would mean a loss in credibility. So how would I suggest news organisations sustain themselves? I don't know because in an ideal world, there would be no money involved in journalism. But, of course, an ideal world is not upon us. So these organisations could probably sustain on donations by the public or it could be through taxpayers' money. My reasoning for this is that journalists are supposed to be responsible and obligated to their readers anyway. Am I right? And this can be actually quite feasible too. PBS in the US actually takes donations and the BBC is funded by taxpayers' money (but now we know the truth!). I know I've also been known to denounce objective journalism and that there is nothing wrong with biasness when it comes to journalism. Honesty is key and full disclosure should be made and that the biasness has to be something that the journalist truly believes in. Let me try to explain this in a clearer way. Let's say a journalist is writing a review of the new Proton Saga model and he hates the car because he has had a bad history using Proton cars. If the journalist is honest about his biasness because of his experience, as a reader I would actually consider the review to be fair enough. However, if I were to see a Honda advertisement right next to the Proton Saga review, then I would definitely not consider the review honest enough. Why so? Well, the newspaper could be pressured into writing a negative review — or even go so far as fabricating its feelings and thoughts on the Proton Saga. So there's my two cents' worth. But I do understand that I could wait forever for an ideal world to materialise. So we just have to trust that journalists do have integrity. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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