Sunday May 11, 2008
NUJ and panellists want Act reviewed
KUALA LUMPUR: The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) was joined by panellists in again urging the Government to review the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA), which they said has been the main obstacle towards press freedom in the country.
Making the plea before new MPs Khairy Jamaluddin (Rembau) and Tian Chua (Batu), NUJM president Norila Daud said the union has pressed this issue for more than a decade, so as to allow journalists to carry out their professional duties without having to fear that their licence would not be renewed.
She said that in view of the online media operating “without any Act imposed on them”, it was high time the Government trusted media owners and practitioners.
“If the Government does not adhere to such calls, I am afraid one day the mainstream newspaper will not be seen as relevant and eventually lose its readership and influence,” she said at the NUJ Press Freedom Forum 2008.
Blogger Ahiruddin Attan aka Rocky said the Malaysian mainstream media was so sensitive to political shifts that even a change in Umno could lead to a change in “the government” of the mainstream media, including the appointment of editors or editorial advisers.
“So long as editors are appointed by the political parties and editors have to answer to political masters, there’ll be no press freedom the way we want it,” he said.
He noted distinct changes in cyberspace since the March 8 general election with citizen journalists, Opposition members and ex-journalists like himself being joined by Barisan Nasional politicians and mainstream journalists like Datuk Wong Chun Wai, the group chief editor of The Star.
“Practising journalists could start a platform for other journalists to start blogging. And blogs could be a conduit for journalists to achieve the press freedom that has eluded them all these years,” he said at the forum yesterday.
Rocky, who believed the mainstream media was still relevant, said it was high time to revive the idea of a media council.
The Sun’s deputy editor R. Nadeswaran, more popularly known as Citizen Nades, said there should be a law where no political party should own or have a controlling interest in a newspaper because then editors would be subservient to these owners, who would in turn influence coverage.
Tian Chua, said there was a need to change outdated media laws, adding that prosecuting bloggers only showed that “we are not graduating ourselves to a new society”.
Agenda Daily editor Hanafiah Man pointed out that while laws like the PPPA were beyond the newspaper’s control, there were other things within its control such as giving space for Opposition news.
Hanafiah also said that the mainstream media must be brave enough to get rid of self-censorship.
Related Story:
Umno Youth deputy chief all for repealing Press Act
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