Say cheese: Fahmi takes a wefie with members of the media during the launch of Hawana 2023 at Wisma Bernama in Kuala Lumpur. — Bernama
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian media practitioners will need to deal with a rapidly-changing landscape due to the type of content they consume and the manner they receive it, says Fahmi Fadzil.
The Communications and Multimedia Minister said the media landscape has changed significantly in recent years with the rise of social media and citizen journalism.
“We can learn a lot from the business models of supranational media companies in foreign countries so that we can achieve a ‘win-win-win’ solution for media practitioners, media organisations and everyday news consumers,” he said during the pre-launch of National Journalists Day (Hawana) 2023 at Wisma Bernama here yesterday.
Fahmi said the unity government is committed to safeguarding press freedom as well as other issues faced by the media industry as a whole.
“We are having discussions with media organisations such as Malaysian Press Institute, National Press Club Malaysia and National Union of Journalists to ensure that media practitioners are able to do their work with professionalism and deliver information that is true,” he said.
Fahmi said journalism ethics should not only be practised by media journalists, but also everyday citizen journalists who often share news stories on social media without much journalistic experience.
“Although we have press freedom in this country, slander and libel are not allowed,” he added.
This year’s Hawana celebrations will be held in Ipoh on May 27 with the theme “Media Bebas dan Selamat, Tunjang Demokrasi (Free and Secure Media, A Pillar of Democracy)”.
More than 1,000 local and foreign media professionals will be in attendance to discuss issues in the industry.
