Media Consultative Council or Media Control Council?

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The Media Consultative Council established by the BN federal government recently had received poor response from representatives of the media industry.

What we saw the membership composition of this council is the consultative council is rather more like a Media Control Council than a consultative. The entire situation of the council had in fact clearly demonstrated that the body aims to control the media.

Asides from invitees from the private media industries, there are so many representatives from the home ministry, information ministry, various enforcement agencies, multimedia commission and the police as well. Furthermore, the council is co-chaired by both the home minister Hishammuddin Hussein and information minister Rais Yatim.

So, what do you think, do you think it looks like a Media Consultative Council? Demonstrated from the composition of the council members itself had already shown that the council aims to exercise its firm control over the media industry.

Besides that, the council only invited representatives from the traditional mainstream medias and a pro-government bloggers association to sit in the body. Online news portals were being totally excluded from the council reasoning that they do not belong to the media industry. It means, only those who aligned to the government are sitting in this about-to-be authoritative body.

Well, we are applaud to hear that finally the majority members of the media industry had began to realized that their taste of press freedom would be come into an authoritative control one day of they were to attend the first ever Media Consultative Council meeting on that very day. Yeah, most of them were absent in the first council meeting which has to be postponed due to lack of quorum.

We urge those in the media industry to seek wisdom from the public instead of the government's media council. Press freedom must be in accordance to the federal constitution and not the law itself. Do not let this government kill off the press freedom and the independent journalistic standards. Be clear that the media in any democratic nation is self-regulatory and not beholden to vested state interests.

It is not "national interest" as claimed by the BN federal government but it should more than a "BN interest" entirely. Arrogance and high handedness are their objectives.

Denying the new medias (internet news portals) from the consultative council clearly shows that BN had deliberately choose to distance itself from the growing media modernization. BN choose to be in a denial mode continuously and such ostrich syndrome would eventually kill not the medias but the BN themselves.

Perhaps, getting rid of all those "sampah masyarakat" like Rais and Hishammuddin would be a very good first step ahead. Think about it.

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