Even Mahathir has to go on Blog

I was one of the attendants of media forum organized by AZAM and See Hua Group held yesterday at Crown Tower

I was representing Chieng Jen to attend the forum entited "Challenges Posed by Alternative Media". The forum agenda forwarded to us shown nothing that Datuk Wong Soon Koh will be the guest of honours of the forum. In his opening speech, he emphasized that “credibility” should be the essential element leads towards the survival of mainstream media, such as daily newspapers. He also emphasized the importance of being an “investigative media”. He commented that alternative media is lacking of resources to become investigative, and it is why they are lacking of credibility.

I am totally disagreed with our Minister of Urban Development and Tourism of Sarawak. The hands of the mainstream media are most of the time tied. In Malaysia, we seriously in need of media freedom. Our Pak Lah, who claimed in desiring to hear the truth, is no one better than his predecessors of being a lover of media freedom. Even his immediate predecessor, Tun Mahatir, is forced to utilise the facility of the internet, sparing his peaceful retiring time to go on “blogging”. Tun Mahathir had commented that the mainstream media have been controlled by government and left with minimum room for media freedom. Tun Mahathir may never think of one day he has to sit down before a computer, joining blogging activity, which could be an alien to him while he was still the man in charge of this country.

The credibility of the mainstream media cannot be gained by way of becoming investigative media. To become ivestigative is a much more advance level for local mainstream media to achieve. We can’t even ensure the media freedom, what more to say moving into investigation work, which is overlapping the work of “Saya Anti Rasuah” team.

Indeed it is true for the mainstream media to gain more credibility in the eyes of the public in order to survive. However, this definitely cannot be done by way of becoming investigative but the government have to provide a freedom atmosphere for the media. Can you do that, BN Government?

“Blocking media freedom leads to Blogging”