Former information minister Zainuddin Maidin claims that disunity among the mainstream media was one of the causes for the BN suffering losses in the last general election.

“If there were a lot of weaknesses (in the last general election), the disunity and fragility of mainstream media (was part of them),” he said during an interview with Sinar Harian .

NONE Zainuddin ( right ) gave an example that when Radio-Television Malaysia (RTM) reported “positive stuff” in a constituency, a private television station sabotaged this by showing negative news based on “hatred”.

“...(The private television station’s report) is to cause the downfall of a person who is not favoured by certain factions in the party.

“This was what happened, and it was even discussed in a meeting, but apparently nobody cared,” added Zainuddin, a former Utusan Malaysia editor-in-chief.

He said even if the media did not like certain leaders, it should not air negative news over television channels.

However, Zainuddin added that the disunity would not be repeated now as “current media are more united to disseminate different issues in one tone”.

He is also confident that BN is better prepared compared to the 2008 general election.

The veteran journalist also lambasted most of the media for not practising ethics in their reporting.

“Even though mainstream media still have ethics, overall they do not practise it.

“If at all the ethics are practised, it is because of the need to protect the relevant newspaper from being sued for defamation.”

He claimed that such ethics were not practised by other media including the online media, which according to him “can publish anything”.

Former prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had conceded that ignorance of cyber-campaigning and the Internet had contributed to BN's loss of five states and being denied a two-third majority in parliament.

Abdullah also said that BN was over-reliant on the mainstream media in the 2008 general election campaign.