The National Union of Journalists today sent a letter to the New Straits Times in protest of what it claims to be misreporting by the English daily and demanded for correction of a report it published on Jan 2.

The news titled 'Dr M refuses to be dragged into The Sun 's internal problems' was said to be "inaccurate and had cast a negative image" on The Sun 's reporter Claudia Theophilus who covered the event.

"There was nothing to suggest that the prime minister had ticked off the reporter. The publishing of her name was totally uncalled for and unethical," said the union's general secretary Hong Boon How in a two-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by malaysiakini .

"If this trend is left unchecked, then all print, broadcast and Internet media would be free to print the names of each reporter who asks questions at any press conference," he added.

NUJ, the umbrella body to print and broadcast journalists in the country, urged NST to explain its reason for publishing Theophilus' name as this ignored good journalistic practices and placed her under tremendous and unnecessary pressure.

Paragraph concocted

The union body also accused NST of concocting a paragraph in the story in which Theophilus reportedly said it was an impression of The Sun 's management that there was government pressure on them.

"The reporter never said anything to that effect," said Hong.

Theophilus had in fact asked Dr Mahathir Mohamad to comment on the said perception of "readers and others" and not of the daily's management as erroneously reported, he explained.

Hong added that as a result of the alleged concoction, Mahathir's reply to the question in the subsequent paragraph was taken out of context as the premier was referring to "readers and others" and not the management when he said:

"Their impression... I don't care about their impression. They have never had any good thing to say about the government. I don't care about their opinion... thank you."

Hong said there were other instances of misreporting in the news which insinuated an ulterior motive on Theophilus' part.

"As such, The Sun 's NUJ branch would like an immediate correction of the article," he added.

NST editor-in-chief Abdullah Ahmad could not be reached for comment.

Unnecessary pressure

On Jan 2, NST in its second-page report written by Firdaus Abdullah said Mahathir had ticked off Theophilus from The Sun , who "claimed that the government was putting unnecessary pressure on the management of the newspaper".

The Sun was eclipsed by controversy following its Christmas day front-page report which alleged that there was a plot to kill Mahathir and his deputy, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

The report was picked up by foreign press and published worldwide. This irked Mahathir who then criticised The Sun for practising 'sensationalist' reporting.

Following that, the daily ran a front-page apology, saying that its story was 'baseless' and suspended two senior editors, a journalist and a photographer.

Journalists from the daily have since gone on pickets for the reinstatement of two suspended journalists and to protest the company's delay of a one-month bonus which was due to be paid by the end of last December.

The company also owes its staff another month's bonus which is supposed to be paid in instalments over three months starting February.