Newspaper boycott

Posted on January 28, 2008
Filed Under Malaysian News, Politics |

I hope Haris Ibrahim’s boycott of the mainstream media is getting a good response. His effort in trying to raise awareness that newspapers do not always tell the truth is a laudable one.

Many of us have known for a long time that the Malaysian mainstream media is basically the government’s mouthpieces. What news publishing company would risk having their publishing license revoked or their application for renewal turned down?

So what better way to self-preserve by practicing self-censorship, and be willing collaborators in the government’s propaganda?

The government’s way of making publishing companies renew their publishing licenses yearly is just a blatant economic coercion, nothing more than a threat that the government has hanging over the publishing companies’ heads if they do not toe the government’s line.

Thank goodness for alternative media outlets like Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today! They have been harassed, their computers seized, and attempts made to close them down and shut them up, but being online news portals, the government can never totally shut them down without totally destroying and discrediting the thin veneer of democracy that the government likes to trumpet to the world.

“Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.” –Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart. 1799.

Too bad, there is no protection for the Malaysian press. Toe the line or else!

And too many have been too eager to toe the line.

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