An emergency motion was filed in Parliament today to discuss a purported violation of media freedom in state-owned broadcaster RTM.
DAP Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching submitted the motion to the Dewan Rakyat speaker's office urging for the matter to be debated urgently.
In a statement released later, Teo urged the BN government to stop 'hidden hands' from violating media freedom when reporting on 1MDB related stories.
Malaysiakini reported yesterday that the Mandarin newsdesk at RTM had been ' punished ' purportedly for airing an unflattering photograph of the prime minister.
Following this, RTM Mandarin newsreaders were made to read their reports without any accompanying video footage for the whole 20 minutes of their programmes resulting in the segment being monotonous and bland.
Besides being forced to go without video footage starting yesterday, the RTM Mandarin news aired this afternoon was addtionally without Chinese superimposed headlines.
Teo said since the matter affected millions of Chinese viewers daily, Parliament should debate it urgently.
"I also mentioned in my motion that no matter whether private or government station, any government intervention in the media is suppression of news freedom."
“I would like to remind BN government and the management of RTM that we are Malaysia and not North Korea. This type of high-handed approach renders press freedom a mockery,” she said.
Viewers affected
Gerakan vice-president Dominic Lau also raised concerns about the issue and has asked the authorities for an explanation.
If anyone had doubts about RTM's reporting, they should go through official channels and not oppress the media, said Lau in a statement.
He pointed out that without video footage, a TV news segment would be no different from radio, and such action would definitely reduce the attraction of the programme.
