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Telling truth to power still no easy task for Malaysia's revved up media

ANALYSIS | In the first hours after the biggest political upset in Malaysia's history, the editor-in-chief of news site Malaysiakini gathered his team in their cramped newsroom in a shabby industrial estate on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

Some journalists and volunteers brought in to cover this month's election that ousted the Barisan Nasional coalition from power after 61 years shed a few tears of joy, recounted Steven Gan, the editor-in-chief.

Others fretted that a government that had relentlessly harassed them, even blocking their site during the vote count on election night, may still try to cling to power.

With widespread distrust in the largely party-owned or pro-Barisan press that skipped stories of corruption and gave little voice to opposition parties, reporting from alternative news sources like Malaysiakini played a major role in rousing an
electorate angered by endemic graft and rising living costs.

Remembering what he said to his staff that morning, Gan said it was no victory speech, but a simple message: "It doesn't really matter who is in power, we as journalists will continue to do our job."

Wall-to-wall coverage of the fallout from the election since then has given a sense that Malaysia's media has been unshackled by the arrival of a new coalition that includes pro-democracy activists and has pledged to repeal anti-fake news legislation...

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