MCC- Media ‘control’ council

MCC is a bad, bad news because politicians like Rais Yatim and Hishammuddin Hussein are to be the joint chairperson of the so-called media consultative council.

COMMENT

Until and unless mainstream media practitioners decide to wake up to the call of “without fear or favour”, the mainstream press would continue to face manipulation by its political masters, for the sake of perpetuating its own agendas.

The 2010 Press Freedom Index published by the media watch group, Reporters without Borders, ranked Malaysia at the 141st position, a regression of 10 positions over that of the previous year.

Surprising? Hardly.

To the authoritarian Barisan Nasional-led government, this dismal ranking of press freedom in Malaysia makes no difference. As such news came out that a Media Consultative Council (MCC) would be set up, with the Najib Tun Razak-government claiming it would serve as a platform and forum to foster goodwill and relationship between the government and media through formulated meetings thrice a year.

However, as far as the media is concerned, the MCC was a bad, bad news.

Bad news because politicians like Rais Yatim, the information, communication and arts minister and Hishammuddin Hussein, the home minister, were to be the joint chairperson of MCC.

Trying to hoodwink the rakyat and the press alike, Rais said the MCC woud help the government and the media to discuss and share ideas and plan the development of the media.

“The setting up of the council is expected to comprise all the government industries involved or related to the media, including print, electronic, new media, internet, bloggers, media organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs),” Rais told the Dewan Rakyat.

But to the media practitioners in the country, they know the MCC would mean a long-term government interference which would only worsen matters. As such, the council’s setting up hit a snag but as always the government is irrationally optimistic that all would end and MCC would make its presence felt soon.

Govt will always control mainstream media

The call by former Bernama editor-in-chief Azman Ujang that the proposed MCC be self-regulated by media practitioners with minimum government interference while laudable is not possible.

The truth is that the government is not willing to severe the umbilical cord and set free the mainstream media, for the “freedom” of the mainstream press would mean the death knell of the Barisan Nasional-led government.

Azman went further and asked media practitioners not to jump the gun and assume that the MCC would end up dictating terms to the media.

What assurance could Azman give that the proposed media council would provide the much needed “resuscitation” to the mainstream media?

In Azman’s words, “the media consultative council should serve as a body to discipline journalists who write unethical news reports” and likened it to the Bar Council which receives complaints about lawyers.

Azman suggested the word “consultative” be dropped from the proposed council to avoid public misunderstanding that the council acts in consultation with the government.

What’s the real agenda behind MCC?

There is certainly no comfort from the news that MCC would serve as a bridge between the federal government and media practitioners. On the contrary, it gives rise to the worry that the council would continue to dictate terms to the mainstream media in particular, not giving two hoots to the reputation of the mainstream press that had long been maligned, all thanks to the dictates of the powers that be.

The biased reports concerning a rally held by election watchdog Bersih 2.0 on July 9 is the classic example of how the mainstream media would never be able to break free from the clutches of its political masters.

To deny readers the truth and instead brainwash them with government propaganda is no longer a feasible strategy as Malaysians have know become wise where searching for the truth is concerned, relying very much on the Internet-based news sites.

Rais’ claim that the MCC would help the government and media practitioners to plan the development of the media is a hogwash, an inroad for the government to continue to exert total control over the press.

Had the development of the media been of any concern Najib there would not have been instances where the media was threatened time and again for reporting the truth.

It was in January this year that this very administration that had decided to tighten its grip on the media by amending the PPPA 1948.

The Home Ministry secretary-general Mahmood Adam then announced that the ministry planned to extend the scope of the Printing Presses and Publications Act to online publications.

This news however received strong objections from the public, the media practitioners and politicians from both the BN and Pakatan Rakyat fold. Perhaps the unexpected overwhelming objection was least anticipated by Najib who then announced then that instead of amending the PPPA, the government decided to regulate the Sedition Act 1948, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission Act 1948 and the PPPA 1948.

The PPPA has been blamed for keeping the print media on a tight leash as the Home Ministry- issued lincense have to be renewed annually.

Ironically, the very same government under the Multimedia Super Corridor Bill of Guarantees pledged that it would not censor the Internet.

MCC- BN propaganda

The PPPA has long strayed from its original purpose, which was to maintain genuine news stories and provide legal guidelines to reporters. Instead, the PPPA moved to restrict political discourse, silencing political opponents, curtailing freedom of speech and manipulating the news delivered to consumers.

It has been alleged that the PPPA “empowers the home minister to exercise virtually total control over the print media.” This criticism intensified after a 1987 amendment to the PPPA established an “ouster clause” preventing actions of the home minister from being called into question by the courts.

Now, the BN government has devised another way to hold the reigns of the media, through the MCC. But it is obvious that the government’s agenda is just the same, to keep the media practitioners down on their knees, forever.

To safe face amidst jeers from the public and the younger generation of politicians on the move to amend the PPP Act 1984, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Abdul Aziz came on board with a far from convincing justification:

“The move is not to stifle freedom of expression in the country but that the government was stern on issues that could threaten national security.

“People have been talking about freedom of expression, freedom of the press. They think freedom of expression is everything, including the freedom to lie, to slander, to do anything, even to the extent of jeopardising the country’s security. Security of the nation is paramount. No compromise on that.”

It is a folly for Najib to tighten his grip on online portals and bloggers under the misguided belief that it was solely their doing that drowned BN in the 12th general election.

Realising the vehement objections to MCC, it did not take long for the powers that be to see that the latest move to muzzle the media would not work, not when politicians have a hand in the MMC, hence the decision to backtrack and go slow with it.

Here, the words of former American senator William Proxmire that “power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous” must be kept in mind by BN-Najib in its frenzy to gain absolute control of the country.

Jeswan Kaur is a freelance journalist and a FMT columnist.