Controlling the media
(The Nut Graph) JUST before Datuk Seri Najib Razak became Malaysia's sixth prime minister on 3 April 2009, I was asked by a Malaysiakini reporter whether I thought there would be further media restrictions under his administration. Some sectors of society imagined, rightly or wrongly, that Najib would control the media even more than his predecessor, Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
My answer then was that it was hard to predict what exactly Najib would do. Whether or not there would be further media restrictions would depend as much on Najib and his advisers as well as on civil society, I figured.
But more than three months have passed since Najib assumed office. Whether or not media controls have worsened, one thing is certain: the evidence demonstrates that media control continues under Najib's administration.
These controls have twin objectives. Rather alarmingly, though not unexpectedly, one of the objectives is to unashamedly protect the image of the Najib administration at all costs. The other objective is to unfairly disadvantage the Pakatan Rakyat (PR).
Read more at: http://www.thenutgraph.com/controlling-the-media
