Here we go again. One month into office, and Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration is already reliving the legacy of state interference in the media process. Et ceteris paribus - journalists are allowed to think what they want to think, but they certainly will not be allowed to say what they want to say. Thus, the summary sacking of New Straits Times group editor-in-chief and ex-politician, Abdullah Ahmad on Nov 20.

One week later, a NST columnist exalted Badawi's one month tenure.

"He's decisive, wants results, wants promises kept and wants to hear the truth" ( NST . Nov.28). Ironically, saying the 'truth' in its fragmented form in the NST context can lead to professional suicide. Transgress, and you pay.

The NST editor's sacking, for whatever reasons, effectively reinforces the reality that under Badawi's administration, the Malaysian media will certainly continue to be controlled from Putrajaya.

Abdullah Ahmad is the third editor-in-chief sacked from NST by the government for challenging the status quo the first in 1986 after the Mahathir-Musa break-up; and the second after the 1999 general election. Editorial autonomy is relevant only to the extent that it is prescribed and granted by the state.

How much more impotent can Malaysian journalists become than to see one of their own scalped, not for any critical expose of public corruption or political skulduggery, not that there is none to uncover, but for simply challenging long held political assumptions? Apart from depressing young and old journalists alike to infantile obeisance and unthinking conformity, government sacking editors can only further erode whatever respectability and credibility is left of Malaysian media, currently in 104th ranking out of 166 in the world press freedom index published by Reporters Sans Frontiers.

'Takut' to ask

Public perception that Malaysian newspaper editors are basically political appointments does not help correct the image that our newsrooms are filled with sycophantic servile scribes. One is thus

reminded of the somewhat excessive adulation lavished on former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad by veteran journalists on the eve of his retirement on Oct.30. When veteran journalists confess that they then were " takut takut " (afraid) of asking the hard questions out of respect and awe for the former prime minister, it does generate many unanswered questions of what Malaysian journalists knew then but were " takut " to ask.

While this deference to budi in social life and the family with its emphasis on empathy, respect for the elders and compromise is culturally praiseworthy, extending it to responsible journalism where reporters should be representing the people's discontent may prove to be the profession's weakest link. Whither Malaysian media code of practice? Whither the inspiring role modelsfor journalism graduates churned out by the local universities?

The Prime Minister's office has recently stirred curiosity with a new idea of implementing a National Integrity Plan, apparently to contain the spread of corruption in the public sector. A "Malaysian Institute for Public Ethics" may even be set up. One waits with bated breath on what the "integrity plan" can produce when journalists' integrity are continually being eroded by the state's interference in their reporting of public affairs, and the more than 40 laws curtailing media discourse.

How has the National Union of Journalists or the Malaysian Press Institute responded to the prime minister's interference in the media process? Not a ripple as far as one can gather. What actions have media academics taken? Apart from whispers of concern along the corridors of academia, it's a pretty helpless situation given the Universities and Colleges Act shadowing their every step. And where are the local media watch bodies, so active in 1998? Surreptitiously, they continue to voice their angst on the Internet.

Sacking editors for challenging the state's version of events is not uncommon in our part of the world. The personal and business interests of media owners have often forced changes in editorial lines to please the governments of the day. Political uncertainty is one thing that businessmen don't need. For instance, in Hong Kong November 2000, Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a veteran China analyst at the South China Morning Post , owned by Malaysian Robert Kuok, was replaced with a journalist who had previously worked for the state-run media in China.

Lam had been in the job for 12 years and was a well-respected China analyst. It was widely known that Kuok had earlier written an open letter to the Post criticising comments that Lam had made on China in his column. How else could the Post 's move to 'sack' Lam be read but as another example of attempts by media owners to apply political pressure on their staff to toe the line?

Former British governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, commenting on the state's gag on the media wrote that "openness with economic and commercial facts and figures will not necessarily happen just because there is a free press. Yet, once again, such openness is more probable where the media are free, and at least good, uncensored media will pick up incidents of cover-up and dishonesty, and harry those who are trying to hide the truth.

Proxy-owned

The worst problems in securing the acceptable minimum of accurate information occur in countries where the domestic press and broadcasting companies are gagged, are in the government's pocket, or are owned by the very businessmen who are colluding with government to cheat and chisel the market. Ownership of the media raises very difficult issues in several Asian countries" ( East & West , MacMillan Publishers, London, 1998, p 265).

In the Malaysian case, it's common knowledge that mainstream papers are proxy-owned by political parties or proprietors affiliated with ruling political parties, whose commercial interests can only be sustained in a climate of political stability and patronage. Will we one day see editors at Nanyang or Sin Chew sacked for driving an agenda for Tibetan or Taiwanese independence?

The bigger question for the Malaysian media, and civil society groups, is how it may be possible to move beyond the current diatribe to future dialogue with the government so that both may fulfil their role in serving the rakyat . There may be those who believe that given the government's history of gagging the media, a dialogue is of little benefit.

Is it beyond any practicability to gather the editors of the mainstream, online and opposition press at a roundtable discussion with the Badawi administration to suss out the fundamental ideological differences? The aim of any dialogue is to inform and learn rather than to persuade or resolve. If anything can come out from a government-media dialogue, it is to improve transparency and accountability, thereby strengthening the credibility of both parties. It would certainly be foolish to deny the relevance of a dialogue between governments and journalists with a common goal in sight, and that is to serve the greater interests of participatory democracy.

ERIC LOO is head of the Graduate School of Journalism, University of Wollongong, New South Wales in Australia. He has worked as a journalist in Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia.