Journalists have nothing to fear about the formation of a media council because it has to first approve the initiative before the government can proceed further on the proposal, said one of the drafters today.
Assoc Prof Dr Mohd Safar Hasim, a member of the working committee tasked with preparing a report on the setting up of a media council under the auspices of the Malaysian Press Institute (MPI), said journalists will be consulted once the government is convinced that the proposal is good for the industry .
The industrys acceptance is vital for the proposal to be successfully implemented and I feel the proposal will not be forced upon the media, the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia journalism lecturer told malaysiakini .
In effect, the industry will be running the media council and have more say in matters affecting its own members.
He was confident that the proposed media council will not be bulldozed through by the government in the near future. He said this was because the government wants all stakeholders the public, industry and itself to be comfortable with the idea of self-regulation of the media.
I dont think the government will rush into this because the media industry, journalists and the public need to be convinced of the media councils objectives of improving professional standards and journalistic ethics.
This is possible through the committees {in the council} which can mediate any complaint brought by any party, ensuring that the interests of all parties media industry, government and the public are protected.
Through this process, mega defamation suits can also be avoided in the future, he said.
No duplication
He also insisted that there would be no duplication of guidelines if the media council were set up in Malaysia with its host of already-present press laws.
In Europe where there are no such laws, the media council idea caught on very fast with the industry because a self-regulatory body was needed to curtail press misbehaviour whereas in Malaysia, the government uses our press laws to curtail any misbehaviour.
But with the media council, the media industry can regulate itself without government interference, so there will not be any overlap, he said, adding that the ultimate goal is to have more freedom of expression.
The media council initiative began in 2000 with several meetings by the Home Affairs Ministry, followed by a task force set up by the MPI.
Two working committees were later put to research on similar initiatives in other countries as well as for initial feedback from local industry players.
In a related development, National Union of Journalists (NUJ) president Norila Daud has demanded for a copy of the draft proposal to be provided to the union.
She said if the effort to form a media council were genuine, then journalists should know what is in the draft proposal.
It is important that we see the draft first before making a stand on the issue because until that happens, we wont know what the initiative is attempting to do.
Furthermore, we provided the initial feedback. So, the proper thing to do is to show us a copy of the draft, she said.
Modelled after Suhakam
Berita Harian today quoted Information Ministry parliamentary secretary Zainuddin Maidin as saying that the proposed media council, to be modeled after the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), will not have any politicians on board, be it from the ruling party or the opposition.
He said the proposal includes either a Federal Court judge or an appellate judge as the chairperson with members coming from among the publishers, editors and reporters.
The media fraternity will make up two-thirds of the proposed council while one-third will be non-media members such as from the academia.
He said the Malaysian code of journalistic ethics was considered and compared with those in countries such as Australia, Denmark, Finland, South Korea, New Zealand and Sweden.
The five advisory panelists in the MPIs main task force committee are Asian Institute of Development Communication chairperson Mazlan Nordin, New Straits Times Press group editor Ahmad A Talib, and group editors-in-chief Rejal Arbee (Berita Harian Sdn Bhd), Khalid Mohamad (Utusan Melayu (M) Bhd ) and Siew Nyoke Chow (Sin Chew Jit Poh (M)).
Zainuddin said the committee also had professionals on board including academicians from UKM, Universiti Malaya as well as Assoc Prof Ahmad Murad Merican and Assoc Prof Dr Rahmat Mohamad, both of Universiti Teknologi Mara.
