Laptops and lapdogs

I was shocked but not a bit surprised to read a couple of days ago that Malaysiakini journalist S Pathmawathy had her brand-new laptop stolen from the media room in Parliament where she had left it while she was covering the debates.

“I was stunned,” she was reported saying, “as I thought this was such a secure place.”

But as sympathetic as I was for her, I found the incident tragically symbolic.

It seemed altogether appropriate, somehow, that a reporter for one of Malaysia’s pitifully few honest media organisations would have her laptop lifted from under the noses of the lapdog of the mainstream media who have been so hard at work all these years stealing the truth from the Malaysian people while pretending to safeguard their interests.

For two decades or more the people not only tolerated this treatment, but actually kept lapping it up. Not that they had any choice. Every newspaper, radio station and TV channel was part of the political plot to rob them blind, so they didn’t and couldn’t know any better.

Then along came Malaysiakini , then Malaysia Today , and dozens, hundreds and thousands of bloggers on a mission to tell and reveal the truth. The ‘mainstream’ media wrote them off for a while as just a bunch of amateurs and agitators.

But finally, despite Malaysia’s miserably low Internet penetration compared to many other nations, the people started taking notice and getting the message. Until finally, in March, it emerged that truth is not only stranger than fiction, but also a good deal stronger.

Since then we’ve seen the mainstream media make strenuous attempts at reform, or at least the appearance of it.

They’ve taken to acknowledging the existence of opposition politicians, attempting to engage bloggers in discussion, and calling for greater freedom from repressive anti-truth and disclosure laws.

Sedition charges

But let’s not get carried away with enthusiasm that this means a free press for Malaysia anytime soon. The lapdogs haven’t completely turned tail yet as their old masters are still in control. So we shouldn’t take their yapping about ‘freedom of the media’ too much to heart.

I suspect that the very editors whining away about the need to be unleashed from the press laws will cynically use their newfound liberty as a front behind which to pursue their old sneaky, secretive ways. Meanwhile there are few signs that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government has any serious intentions of slackening the curbs on its creatures in the media.

Deputy Energy, Water and Communications Minister Joseph Salang Gandum has informed Parliament that the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission has been investigating 22 websites and blogs for making false, pornographic and baseless allegations.

And sedition charges are still pending against Raja Petra Kamarudin and Syed Akbar Ali concerning an article and comment on Malaysia Today , implicating Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Najib Abdul Razak in the murder of Mongolian interpreter Altantuya Shaariibuu. [Najib has denied any involvement.]

Admittedly Information Minister Ahmed Shabery Cheek (right) has been at pains to adopt a less savage approach to the media than his predecessor Zainuddin Maidin. He has initiated daily 30-minute live telecast of parliamentary question time on RTM, permitted an interview with bloggers on a 20-minute weekly TV programme, and talked about the need to open up public debate.

In an interview with Shahanaaz Habib in The Star recently, he was reported as saying: “For me when Pak Lah talks about reforms, it is not only the judiciary and ACA. The reforms would not be complete if the government does not bring a new approach to the media.

“It’s very important to provide the fresh air that people have been longing (for) for a very long time. The era when you can sweep everything under the carpet or black out the opposition is gone.”

Later in the interview, though, he mused that “...when you talk about free media, it has to be done gradually. I don’t know. It can be a gamble.”

So clearly Shabery, as eager as he is to portray himself as open-minded and even-handed, still sees the media as an arm of government propaganda. As does BN attack-dog Khairy Jamaluddin.

Weasel concept

In a keynote speech to the National Union of Journalists on May 10, Khairy appeared to be embracing press freedom, but what he actually said was that “giving the mainstream media more freedom will resolve the credibility crisis faced by them”.

“Credibility is very important. That will be the single determinant (of) whether the news is being accepted and disseminated.”

In other words, his idea of ‘news’ is not free and independent reporting of information for the enlightenment of the audience, but a message to be ‘disseminated’ public-relations style. And his test of its worth is not truth but the weasel concept of ‘credibility’.

It’s incredible to me that political-party apparatchiks like Sabery and Jamaluddin still expect to get away with viewing the media as a bunch of childish tattle-tales who can be bullied and bribed not to air the family’s dirty linen in public.

And equally incredible is that they have not realised that, despite having been so long ‘protected’ like innocent or idiot children from the harsh realities of BN rule, the people of Malaysia have finally grown up.

They’re no longer content with a lapdog media, however tame and cuddly they might make life seem. Now they want real watchdogs to protect their interests in the real world.

So it’s great to see that some journalists are out there calling for genuine reform. Benar, a civil society initiative, is staging a call for free and fair media this Sunday.

Let’s hope lots of lapdogs will find the courage to get up on their hind legs and walk with their more upstanding colleagues. And that Pathmawathy will have a replacement laptop by then so she can help report on the proceedings with lots of Malaysiakini -style byte.