Understanding the Media Trust Deficit
Mainstream-media journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were supposed to do in the first place.
Stephen Doss
Its 2013, there is no more sense in segregating media in Malaysia as mainstream media and alternative media or new media anymore; all the previously known big traditional media such as TV3, Astro, Utusan Malaysia, The Star, The Malay Mail, etc have their own online presence.
All of them have twitter accounts, FB pages and websites. The only differences are those who do not have licenses to operate electronic/print media have only the internet to rely on. Thus as you can see it’s far from a level playing field.
The traditional media is now competing with everyone else online, but those who started life online are not so lucky; they are handicapped for they do not have the means to challenge the traditional media boys.
And yet, after the last general elections a number of politicians from the ruling party claimed they were defeated by the social media, and till today there is much concern over a yet to be proven “Red Bean Army” which Utusan Malaysia claims is an army of cybertroopers funded by the DAP.
In Malaysia, there is more than ample proof that most mainstream media are owned by political parties belonging to the Barisan Nasional either directly or indirectly. And as mentioned earlier, these media organizations now have a huge presence online too. Add to this, the many cybertroopers in the employ of UMNO like the Unit Media Baru of Pemuda UMNO and the many pro-UMNO bloggers, these added firepower should have made the BN invincible and all powerful in terms of influencing the voters.
And yet, politicians aligned to the BN are complaining that they lost the social media war – what happened?
Are media strategists of the mainstream media so inept at what they are supposed to do best?
To my mind there are probably 4 reasons why the mainstream media has lost the plot, leading to a trust deficit, the reason why readers no longer believe in what the government has to say via these media organizations.
One, Self-Censorship by journalists
Journalists today have become adept at second guessing what their editors or company owners are comfortable with as news. Journalists are known to purposely avoid newsworthy stories, while nearly as many acknowledge they have softened the tone of their stories to benefit the interests of their news organizations. Journalists also tend to avoid newsworthy stories if the story would be embarrassing or damaging to the financial interests of a news organization’s owners or parent company.
Why do journalists self-censor? As Mark Twain once said, “We write frankly and freely but then we ‘modify’ before we print.” Why do we modify the free and frank expression of journalistic truth? We do it out of fear: Fear for our jobs. Fear that we’ll catch hell for it. Fear that someone will seek to hang a sign around our neck that says, in essence, “Unpatriotic.”
Mainstream-media journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were supposed to do in the first place.
Two, Censorship by Editors
When journalists are moved enough by their conscience to want to speak out about an issue, they are subject to tremendous pressure by their editors or producers to kill the story. Investigative journalists say newsworthy stories are often or sometimes ignored because they conflict with the news organization’s economic interests. There are many reasons for censorship by media higher-ups. The most important being money.
The media has a strong monetary interest to avoid controversial topics in general. It has always been true that advertisers discourage stories which challenge corporate power. Some media organizations go to great lengths to please their sponsors. Some media companies make a lot of money from the government, and so don’t want to rock the boat.
Three, Access
It is common knowledge that journalists from the mainstream media have access to those who walk the corridors of power, and they are willing to do almost anything to continue with that privileged relationship. Not only does this relationship makes for easier reporting, hassle free and unlikely to get the journalist into any real trouble, it can be also quite lucrative.Four, Censorship by the Government
Finally, as the media’s own interest is survival, it is dependent on the government for its continued existence. The government has every opportunity to exert tremendous pressure on the media to report things a certain way.
If they criticize those in power, they may be smeared by the government and targeted for arrest.
In Part 2, I will write about what the Barisan Nasional-led government needs to do to reduce that deficit of trust, painful as it may be and possibly win the battle for the hearts and minds of Malaysians.
I leave you with two interesting quotes to ponder;
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Stephen Doss is a social activist and political observer. He is currently the Advisor to the Social Media Chambers of Malaysia. He can be found on twitter @stephendoss
