The mouthpiece of the government
In the 1980’s, my graduation thesis was A Comparative Study of Viewing and Listening Habits of the three main races in Penang based on samples taken from low cost flat dwellers in three housing schemes. The findings then showed that tv viewing was an important activity. While reminiscing this evening, I thought about the functions of our main broadcasting station then and now and decided to see if indeed these have changed in tandem with the political landscape.
As many of us know, Radio Televisyen Malaysia is under the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture. Wikipedia provides some information of RTM at THIS LINK. The official website HERE gives the history and development of Radio Televisyen Malaysia. This link HERE reveals that Datuk Ibrahim Yahaya is currently the Director General of the Department of Broadcasting Malaysia.
Interestingly, I googled his name and discovered that he has a few blogs, one of which is called Dunia Tiger. Previously, he was chief news editor of Berita Harian. Then he moved to TV3 as an editor. After a stint at Berita publishing, he became media consultant to RTM (2005-2007). In September 2008, became Media Advisor to Minister of Information and was subsequently appointed as Director General of Broadcasting, Ministry of Information Communications and Culture on March 16, 2009. I am not surprised as he has such a sterling record in the media industry.
Upon close examination of his blog, I am very impressed with his mastery of Bahasa Malaysia. His blog examines various interesting issues – from World Cup Football to politics to personal experiences and of course political issues as well.
One particular blog post caught my attention – Bengkel Transformasi RTM. This particular blog post reveals the functions of RTM (the official version can be accessed HERE).
Excerpt from his blog:
