In his inspiring political memoir, Dark Clouds at Dawn , Said Zahari ( photo ), who had served as editor of the very independent and outspoken Malay newspaper Utusan Melayu reminded us of that defining moment in 1961 when the press lost its freedom in Malaysia.

That year, Umno, under the control of Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, instituted a takeover of Utusan Melayu Press Bhd to ensure that the paper's editorial would portray his party and administration in a favourable light.

Grip tightened

A decade later, in 1972, the Straits Times Press Bhd, which published the English broadsheet, The Straits Times , was taken over by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, then o­ne of Umno's three vice-presidents. The Straits Times Press also published a prominent Malay newspaper Berita Harian .

The Straits Times Press takeover was undertaken following protests by Umno Youth that foreign British and Singaporean interests controlled the paper. Razaleigh bought the company at the request of then prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein, and the company was renamed the New Straits Times Press (NSTP).

Razaleigh injected the NSTP equity into Umno's holding company, Fleet Holdings Sdn Bhd, which he controlled. When Fleet Holdings was incorporated in 1972, it also took control of Utusan Melayu Press, but the equity of this company was subsequently hived off to Razaleigh's close ally, Ghafar Baba. Ghafar, like Razaleigh, was then an Umno vice president.

This meant by the early 1970s, Umno leaders had control of the country's leading English paper as well as the key Malay newspapers Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian .

In 1976, when the stopgap Umno deputy president Hussein O­nn unexpectedly took over as prime minister, he appointed the most junior and presumably the weakest of the three vice-presidents, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, as his deputy in the party and government.

In 1982, a year after Mahathir (photo ) became prime minister, he appointed close ally Daim Zainuddin as director of Fleet Holdings, thus securing control of NSTP, which also gave him control of Berita Harian .

Daim's appointment to Fleet Holdings and later as finance minister was an attempt by Mahathir to check the influential Razaleigh, who had narrowly lost to Musa Hitam in the contest for the post of deputy president in the 1981 Umno elections.

Since Mahathir was concerned about the Kelantan prince's influence in Umno, he covertly supported Musa in the contest.

Mahathir's long tenure would be characterised by his attempts to get factions controlled by second echelon leaders to challenge each other as a means to consolidate his own position.

Umno influence

In the early 1990s, Anwar Ibrahim, then an Umno vice-president and finance minister, began his quest to secure the post of deputy president of the party, then held by Ghafar.

Anwar first moved to secure control of the leading English and Malay newspapers. With the help of Quek Leng Chan's Hong Leong group, Anwar's allies obtained control of NSTP through a private firm, Realmild Sdn Bhd.

Another media company in the NSTP group by then was TV3 , Malaysia's first private television network.

The owners of Realmild were four senior NSTP executives Abdul Kadir Jasin, Khalid Ahmad, Mohd Noor Mutalib and Ahmad Nazri Abdullah. Anwar also helped secure the appointment of Johan Jaaffar as editor of Utusan Malaysia .

Through his indirect control of the media, Anwar easily displaced Ghafar as deputy president during the 1993 Umno elections.

Similarly, in 1998, when Mahathir decided to oust Anwar from Umno, the prime minister first moved to replace Johan Jaffar as editor of Utusan Malaysia . The four NSTP executives lost control of Realmild and thus their influence over the New Straits Times , Berita Harian and TV3.

Realmild was taken over by Abdul Rahman Maidin, a close associate of Daim. These media firms were subsequently used and abused by Umno leaders to discredit Anwar.

In an unexpected reaction to evidently biased reporting about Anwar's alleged corruption and homosexuality, all these newspapers, Utusan Malaysia , New Straits Times and Berita Harian as well as TV3 experienced a significant drop in revenue.

When Daim fell out of favour with Mahathir in 2001 he resigned as finance minister in June that year, without revealing his reasons for leaving Abdul Rahman lost control of Realmild.

It is unclear who owns Realmild now, whether Umno or individuals associated with Mahathir. Abdullah Ahmad (photo ), a close associate of the prime minister, is editor-in-chief of the New Straits Times .

Chinese media

Among the major newspapers, the Chinese media has had a reputation for some independence. The Chinese community, moreover, has shown a tendency to shun Chinese newspapers controlled by politically well-connected companies.

In 1985, NSTP acquired the Shin Min Daily News from Tan Koon Swan, then the president of the MCA, Umno's leading partner in the Barisan Nasional. This newspaper, though then the third largest Chinese language newspaper, eventually was closed.

The MCA, which controls the leading English tabloid, the Star , through its holding company, Huaren Holdings Sdn Bhd, also had ownership of a Chinese newspaper, Tong Bao . This Chinese newspaper also eventually went into liquidation.

The takeover of Nanyang Siang Pau , Malaysia's second best-selling newspapers, by Huaren Holdings is thus an interesting development. Given the popularity of this Chinese newspaper, the Malay political elite had long been interested in gaining a stake in Nanyang Press Bhd, which also publishes another Chinese paper, China Press .

When TV3 was formed in 1983, through Fleet Holdings, Umno offered Nanyang Press a stake in the new private television project. In return, Fleet Holdings wanted a large interest in Nanyang Press. Fleet Holdings' offer was rejected.

In the late 1980s, Quek's Hong Leong group, through Hume Industries Bhd, secured majority control of Nanyang Press. In 1990, Fleet Holdings acquired an interest in Hume Industries, thus giving Umno an indirect interest in the Chinese newspaper.

Later that year, Fleet Holdings' indirect interest in Nanyang Press, as well as its direct interests in NSTP and TV3, were taken over by publicly-listed Renong Bhd, a company controlled by Daim's prot g , Halim Saad, in trust for Umno.

Since Quek was reputedly aligned with Anwar, following the ouster of the deputy prime minister, it became imperative for Umno to ensure that Nanyang Press, still seen as a rather independent newspaper, came under the direct control of people associated with the ruling party.

The government thus did not object to the acquisition of Nanayang Press by the MCA's Huaren Holdings, despite widespread opposition to this deal by the Chinese community.

Since Chinese newspapers controlled by political parties have gone into liquidation, it would be interesting to see how Nanyang Press fares under the MCA.

It is also noteworthy that Malaysia's best-selling Chinese newspaper, Sin Chiew Jit Poh , is owned by the well-connected Sarawak-based businessman-cum-politician Tiong Hiew King.

Ownership today

By 2000, since the Mahathir administration had come under increasing pressure following the embarrassing Anwar debacle and Umno's poor performance in the 1999 general elections, all the major print and electronic media were placed under the control of well-connected firms or business people.

The ownership pattern of the media in 2002 was:

1. Utusan Melayu Press under the direct control of Umno;

2. NSTP and TV3 majority-owned by Realmild, but it is uncertain who presently owns this firm;

3. Star Publications and Nanyang Press under the MCA's direct control through Huaren Holdings;

4. * The Sun/The Edge/Asia Inc owned by Nexnews Bhd, controlled by Mahthir's close ally, Vincent Tan Chee Yioun, and Tong Kooi o­ng;

5. Malaysian Business owned by A Kadir Jasin, former editor-in-chief of NSTP;

6. Sin Chew Jit Poh owned by Sarawakian businessman-cum-politician Tiong Hiew King;

7. NTV7 owned by Sarawakian politician Effendi Norwawi, currently the agriculture minister;

8. Astro , which operates Bloomberg Malaysia owned by Ananda Krishnan, a Mahathir ally;

9. The major Tamil newspapers remain under the direct and indirect control of MIC leaders; and

10. TV1 and TV2 controlled by government, dominated by Umno.

A number of points should be noted about this list.

First, the political elite controls the media in a both direct and indirect manner. Umno has, for example, direct control over Utusan Malaysia and indirect control over Berita Harian , the New Straits Times and TV3.

Second, a viewing of the news o­n government-owned TV1 and TV2 would indicate that their analyses of issues are far more balanced than that presented by the privately-owned TV3 and NTV7.

This suggests a fundamental difference between government and private ownership of the media. Private ownership of the media has not contributed to more open expression of opinions and balanced reporting.

This also suggests a clear subservience of capital to the state. State power is such that the government can divest private owners of their interests in the corporate sector at will, if powerful politicians so desire. This was evident during the consolidation of the Malaysian banking sector in 2001.

In this context, businessmen in control of the private media would be compelled to ensure that they do not fall foul of the state or the powerful prime minister. Following the political problems between Mahathir and Anwar and then between Mahathir and Daim, businessmen closely associated with both these former finance ministers found that they had lost control of key corporate entities.

Daim's allies Halim Saad and Abdul Rahman Maidin, for example, lost control of Renong and NSTP respectively. Quek, who was associated with Anwar, was probably compelled to relinquish control of Nanyang Press as a means to appease the prime minister.

Shoddy journalism

Although the major newspapers, including Utusan Malaysia and the New Straits Times , have been under the control of Umno or key party leaders since the 1960s, the quality of journalism in Malaysia had been commendable through that decade till the mid-1980s. There was much emphasis o­n investigative journalism and the quality of analyses of issues was extremely decent.

Today, however, although ownership and control patterns of the media have not changed, newspapers have lost the capacity for investigative journalism.

The quality of journalism in Malaysia has evidently declined. What has emerged is a form of 'government-say-so-journalism', to quote John Lent, a scholar of the media in Southeast Asia.

It is unclear why this perceptible decline in the quality of the media has occurred. It could possibly be due to the emergence of an extremely strong state, where power is concentrated in the office of the prime minister. It may be due to the extreme subservience of capital to the state.

Or, it could be because there is much more direct interference by media owners and the political elite o­n the editorial board, to ensure that unfavourable reports about the government are not carried.

The actual reason is probably a combination of these facts as well as other factors, including a desire by editors and journalists to self-censor for fear of falling out with the state.

Until another editor like Said Zahari publishes his memoirs or until journalists provide an in-depth analysis of what transpires in the press room, the reasons for the decline of the media will probably not be known.

Meanwhile, following Mahathir's departure as prime minister in October, attempts will be made by Umno leaders to secure control over the press to consolidate their position or facilitate their ascendancy in the party.

Under these conditions, it is unlikely that controls over press freedom in Malaysia will be liberalised.

EDMUND TERENCE GOMEZ is associate professor at the Faculty of Economics & Administration, Universiti Malaya. He is the author of Politics in Business: Umno's Corporate Investments, Malaysia's Political Economy: Politics, Patronage and Profits and Chinese Business in Malaysia: Accumulation, Ascendance, Accommodation .

* Erratum: Nexnews has pointed out o­n April 3 that it is awaiting the authorities' approval o­n the proposed acquisition of Sun Media Corporation Sdn Bhd and The Edge Communications Sdn Bhd, publishers of The Sun and The Edge Malaysia respectively. In addition, Asia Inc and The Edge Publishing Pte Ltd (publisher of The Edge Singapore ) have recently signed an agreement to form a regional media company totally separate from Nexnews.

The approval o­n the proposed acquisition of Sun Media Corporation Sdn Bhd and The Edge Communications Sdn Bhd Nexnews was subsequently announced a week later.