Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's battle cry against fake news has led to both sides of the political divide to accuse each other of false tidings.

DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang accused Najib of perpetrating fake news himself, in trying to cover up the 1MDB scandal while Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak accused former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad of fake news in accusing the government of being corrupt.

The debate came about after Najib on Wednesday railed against fake news at a gathering of international newspaper publishers in Kuala Lumpur.

"In his speech, Najib referred to 'a well-known foreign newspaper' which he alleged to be 'printing lies about the government'.

"Everybody knows that Najib was referring to the Wall Street Journal, which had worked assiduously and consistently on the global kleptocratic 1MDB scandal.

"Najib is in fact responsible for the most heinous fake news any government has concocted, with the official government version that the global kleptocratic 1MDB scandal does not exist," said Lim in a statement today.

Lim claimed Najib conspicuously omitted the "plague of false and fake news" in the mainstream media, particular those owned and by the government.

"False and fake news, whether in social media, foreign newspapers or in local mainstream media, must be equally combated, exposed and condemned for they are designed not only to distort truth, but deceive the people about the true facts and situation," he said.

Meanwhile, Salleh took issue with Mahathir's repeated assertion that Malaysia was amongst the most corrupt countries in the world.

Salleh, citing a CNBC report in January, said its top 10 list of the most corrupt countries were Somalia, South Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Afghanistan, Guinea-Bissau and Venezuela.

He added that the New York Times, The Independent UK and Fortune.com have produced similar reports.

"Last month, on Mar 14, 2017, CheatSheet came out with the 15 most corrupt countries in the world and still, Malaysia was not on the list.

"Even more interesting is the fact that ranker.com came out with the most corrupt countries list based on Transparency International’s report and Malaysia was not even in the top 100 list. 

"So where did Mahathir get his facts from? Has someone been feeding him false news?" said Salleh.

Mahathir, who had quit Umno, is now the chairperson of Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, which is aligned to the opposition.