A series of campaigns against the proposed takeover of two newspapers by Chinese-based political party MCA will be launched by a newly formed group, Committee Against Takeover of Nanyang Press by MCA (CAT).

The group, consisting of 12 committee members, seeks to register "strong objections to political parties' control of mass media" and to alert the public of the pitfalls involved in the MCA takeover of Nanyang Press, which publishes two major Chinese dailies - Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press .

"We will go out and urged the public to participate in the Yellow Ribbon campaign launched by the journalists of the two newspapers," CAT secretary Wong Chin Huat told malaysiakini today.

On Friday, staff of the two affected newspapers began wearing yellow ribbons as a show of protest against the takeover. Among those spotted with yellow ribbons are top management personnel including chief editor Wong Kam Hor.

The journalists also urge the public to don yellow ribbons in solidarity with Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press employees.

"We will also be using our extensive network to lobby Chinese groups and associations to protest against the deal," said Wong.

He said that the committee, which was formed on Friday, organised its first activity yesterday when it called a press conference of 41 writers who vowed to stop contributing to the Chinese dailies to avoid being used by MCA "as window dressing to mislead their readers".

CAT is planning more protest actions in the coming days in a last-minute bid to stop the MCA-Nanyang deal.

The deal, confirmed by MCA last Wednesday, is expected to be sealed by the end of next week. According to sources, MCA is worried that any delay in the agreement would allow strong public protests to derail the deal.

It is learnt that the deal will be signed by Friday as MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik is expected to leave for a business trip overseas two days later.

Expect political intervention

Wong warned that if the deal was to proceed, the public should expect MCA to exercise more aggressive political intervention in the news coverage of the two dailies.

"The publications under Nanyang Press will become the propaganda machine for the ruling coalition, especially MCA, to sell its ideology and silence its critics," he said.

He lamented that the mainstream media in the country today are already owned by a handful of political and business elites.

"The investment arms of the component parties of the ruling coalition, as well as the corporate groups closely connected to the political elites, control the mainstream media through corporate mergers or acquisitions," he said.

According to Wong, the concentration of mass media ownership also means the concentration of the power to disseminate information to an ever smaller and smaller group.

"The information that the public receives will be increasingly one-sided and biased in nature. Even if there are media products in different forms, the information, values, political beliefs and even prejudices would be the same as the producers belong to the same camp," he said.

He added that once big media groups become the mouthpieces of the ruling coalition, what the public would get is news perceived to be "suitable" by a handful of news managers.

"And the consideration of suitability lies not in the affirmation of truth or the fulfilment of social responsibility, but in the calculations of gains and losses to the ruling coalition."