Will newly promoted Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin steer the Malaysian media into an era of liberalisation or is he only interested in becoming the czar of propaganda?

Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang cautions the minister against trying to emulate the infamous Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.

He said Zainuddin, or Zam as he is popularly known, should heed the words of veteran journalist Pak Samad who yesterday criticised the lack of press freedom in this country.

"Zainuddin should drop all notions of being the Gobbles of Malaysia and take inspiration from Samad's critique of media censorship," he added in a statement today.

He said the minister must spearhead a campaign to extend the frontiers of media freedom in Malaysia as part of a new National Information Policy which entrenches the fundamental right to information of Malaysians.

Is he prepared?

"I had in recent years likened Zainuddin to Goebbels because of his gross abuse of RTM as an instrument to disseminate unfair, dishonest, unethical, tendentious and malicious propaganda against the opposition and dissent," he added.

The opposition leader cited two cases where Zainuddin used the state-owned television station to launch a propaganda blitz:

1) The nightly 90-second attack on opposition parties aired during prime time news slots on RTM1 and RTM2 in early 2002 when he was the ministry's parliamentary secretary.

2) The three-part Barisan Nasional propaganda feature 'Bahaya Cuvinisme' (Dangers of Chauvinism) which was 'camouflaged' as prime time news from Nov 16-18, 2002 when Zainuddin was promoted as deputy minister.

In the second programme, Lim said his party DAP and Chinese education movement Dong Jiao Zong were "defamed with inflammatory and baseless accusations of being unpatriotic, anti-national and anti-Malay".

"Nobody is asking for absolute press freedom as every freedom is accompanied by responsibility and trust. There are however vast areas for greater media freedom in Malaysia if we are to have a better informed citizenry to be more prepared for the challenges of globalization," he added.

"Is Zainuddin prepared to cut the apron-strings tying RTM news to government propaganda and give them the free reign to operate as an independent news organisation?," he asked.

Lim also questioned if Zam is prepared to introduce a new National Information Policy, with the objective of enacting a Freedom of Information Act and the repeal of the Official Secrets Act?