Prior to its closure on the midnight of March 15, two companies linked to Umno and MCA respectively offered to buy The Malaysian Insider (TMI), according to an editor of the defunct news portal.

However, the offer was turned down by its editor Jahabar Sadiq, TMI's features and analysis editor Zulkifli Sulong said.

Zulkifli spoke on the how the TMI struggle to survive to find a new buyer and its predicament following the blocking of access to its site on the Internet three weeks before its closure at a forum last night, titled 'One Pen, Ten Thousand Man - Media Freedom in Malaysia'.

The Edge Media Group had mulled to sell TMI following the court hearing on its publications The Edge Financial Daily and The Edge Financial Weekly .

The management of TMI and The Edge Media Group then discussed the possibility of a management buy-over, he said.

"I asked my editor Jahabar the reason for the management buy-over. 'Two reasons', he replied. There were two (potential) big buyers. One is a big company linked to MCA, that Jahabar rejected. Another potential buyer is linked to Umno, and Jahabar said 'no' to this as well," Zulkifli said.

"Jahabar said he did not trust (the principles of) political parties in controlling media organisations, be it DAP or PAS as well," he added.

The news portal was having difficulty to secure a new investor after its report on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) advisory panel, which led the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to block its access, he claimed.

It was reported that MCMC had banned TMI on national security grounds, but the government is yet to tell which article of the news portal had posed a threat to the security.

"Who would want to buy a news portal that has been denied access ot its site? We have no idea. But Jahabar sent all the staff members an email that morning, saying 'TMI would be closed at 12am," Zulkifli said.

"We were shocked, we were in the dark… At the Monday (March 14) editorial meeting, Jahabar explained that this was the decision the company was forced to make after the MCMC's blockage and The Edge Media Group's desire to sell," he added.

The Edge Media Group had decided to shut down TMI, after MCMC blocked access to the news portal, for commercial reasons . This left 59 members of the staff unemployed.

'Same group of people will make a comeback'

However, Zulkifli said, the same group of people would make a comeback by setting up another news portal to continue the mission of the TMI.

The TMI team had interviewed former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad after its closure, he added.

Zulkifli also revealed, during the question-and-answer session, that the news portal would re-establish itself in April.

"You've talked about the setting up of a new TMI. Would it happen before the next general election?" asked one of the 25 members in the audience at the forum.

"I am sure this will happen before the next general election. Hopefully April - after next week," replied Zulkifli, who was one of five TMI editors arrested for a report on the Rulers’ Conference rejecting the hudud bill last year.

The Edge Media Group is also reported to have suffered losses of around RM10 million since it acquired TMI in June 2014.

Malaysian political cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Haque, who is better known as Zunar, also spoke at the forum.

Zunar lamented that local journalists were so contended with their lucrative wages that they distanced themself from the struggle for press freedom, let alone rise to fight the government's clampdown on press freedom.

"If this happened in Indonesia, all the editors and journalists will stomp the street," he said.

"But, most of the journalists (here) are enjoying (their lives). They will not fight. They work in Utusan Malaysia and enjoy good payment, so why the need to fight?" Zunar asked.

Back in those days when the people in power were not familiar with Internet technologies, netizens could counter them via Facebook, he said.

The netizens are now under surveilance as the authorities were now masters in the skills of the Internet technologies, he said, adding that the authorities also used Facebook, Google and other Internet platforms to propagate to win the people's hearts.

"We need to find another way out. The government takes stern action against netizens. They will cheat if they know they cannot win," Zunar said.

'No government can survive ridicule'

He said the netizens and the people could still use their creativity to resist the government.

"If you can write or sing, then write or sing (creatively). If you are a fisherman, then put up the words 'Step down, Najib' on your boat.

"The best you can do to express civil disobedience in Malaysia to laugh at the government. You just laugh out loud when something big happens. You just 'hahaha' when they say something. What can they do to you?

"You must ensure you can laugh at this country. No government can survive the ridicule (from its people)," Zunar added.

Media studies scholar Chang Teck Peng said the government would stifle press freedom whenever there is a power struggle among its leaders and that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was no exception in this.

"Najib announced his plan to abolish Sedition Act on Sept 16, 2011, but he then tightened his grip on the press after the 1MDB fiasco blew up," Chang said.

"Mahathir, who contributed much to stifling the freedom of the press, had paved way for Najib to come out with more mechanisms to tighten his grip on media and even punish the media people," he added.