NST, please have the fear of God in you
NST’s report yesterday (Nov 22/Nov 23, 2009) headlined ‘Husam: They go or I’ll quit’, is so over the top.
By Husam Musa (Translated from Malay by Centre for Policy Initiatives)
The NST journalists, Shuhada Elis and Nik Imran Abdullah, reported as if they were privy to the inner workings of my mind.
Either that or it seems they were present during my meeting with Tok Guru “last Tuesday”. Their apparent clairvoyance made even me a trifle curious – did I really meet up Tok Guru on Tuesday?? As far as I can remember, on Monday and Tuesday I was in Parliament and following the debate by the Prime Minister’s Department Parliamentary committee … to see Datuk Nazri in action.
The two journalists were seemingly ‘complicit’ to all the details of my supposed meeting. Tok Guru has said there was no such meeting, yet NST says there was. Now what do I have to say?
I’ve had to explicitly ask myself, did we have the discussion as detailed? Set this and that condition, and make that and this threat? Was it Husam (making those demands) or whom?
Or did those journalists put words into our mouths? Ahh, might it be a case of hallucination by certain individuals after popping the wrong pills?
When fairy tales are made out to be news reports, it is like NST is attempting to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
It is hardly surprising that some people should say that even though we live today in the information age, not every bit of information being fed us is guaranteed to be true. ‘Info’ can be shaken and stirred by the writer’s imagination to create a dish suiting the taste buds of the consumer. In this era, truth has become subjective.
Islam since long ago has emphasized ‘veracity’. The messenger must also be ‘muttaqin’ (he who follows the straight path).
News is necessarily important and because of this, the word ‘Prophet’ carries the meaning ‘one who brings the message’.
So isn’t it that when a report does not contain the noble value of truth, it becomes ‘false news’? Delivering these untruths is usually associated with base motives such as creating friction, fitnah (bearing false witness), supporting hidden agendas of sowing discord, triggering enmity, unrest, character assassination, political isolation, and bringing down the opponent.
In the run-up to the last general election, NST did the same thing to me. My defamation suit against NST is due to be heard early next year.
Of its own accord, NST has published an apology without consulting me on this matter. As a ‘consolation’ prize, I have instructed my lawyers to politely reject the apology as I feel that a person’s self-respect does not come that cheap (to be fobbed off by a simple erratum)….
Today NST appears to want me to sue them again as they have once more ‘menggoreng’ (cooked up) a piece of news. Inserting the qualifier “It was understood that….” is merely NST’s fig leaf for putting forward its own conjectures.
It is not that filing lawsuits is the only way through which I deal with the media nor is it that I’m not open to reaching an amicable settlement. Not at all.
However, an organization repeatedly committing this offence requires continuous ‘learning’ (to be taught a lesson) and the only defence for a powerless individual like me is to have recourse to the courts. What more when NST is willing to take the risk to further its motives and agenda. In their effort to muddy the waters, they are only crying wolf.
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The above posting titled ‘NST: Tolong Takutkan Tuhan’ appeared in Husam Musa’s Cetusan Hati blog on Nov 23, 2009. Husam is a Kelantan senior exco and state PAS deputy commissioner.
