MEDIA MONITORING REPORT:

BY-ELECTIONS APRIL 2009 IN BUKIT GANTANG, BUKIT SELAMBAU AND

BATANG AI

Report 1: MEDIA MONITORING REPORT: Coverage by Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times, The Star and theSun of the 2009 Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, and Batang Ai By-Elections by Yip Wai Fong

Report 2: MEDIA MONITORING REPORT: Online Media Coverage of the 2009 Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, and Batang Ai By-Elections by Zachary David Chambers Hill, Luce Scholar 2008-2009

Tel: 03-40230772, email: gayathry@cijmalaysia.org / waifong.yip@gmail.com

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MEDIA MONITORING REPORT: Coverage by Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times, The Star and theSun of the 2009 Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, and Batang Ai By-Elections

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Following the 8 March 2008 general elections when the electorate delivered a serious blow to the Barisan Nasional and indirectly to the mainstream media, expectations grew that there would be changes for the better within the newsrooms in terms of independent and critical coverage. The Centre for Independent Journalism, in collaboration with Charter 2000-Aliran and Writers Alliance for Media Independence conducted a media monitoring exercise during the 2008 elections, and it was felt that the three by-elections that took place simultaneously in April would provide a good opportunity to conduct monitoring and assess the media coverage a year later.

The monitoring of the triple by-elections in Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau and Batang Ai was done for the period starting 31 March 2009 to 8 April 2009, involving Utusan Malaysia, the New Straits Times, The Star, and The Sun. A total of 486 stories were monitored from the news section, and often these were in designated pages for the by-election coverage. Using simple categories, we tried to get a feel of the slant of the reporting, and at the same time, we tried to draw out specific issues in the reporting that may be used as reference points for improvements. Utusan Malaysia had the highest number of stories on the by-elections and it also had the highest portion of stories that were positive to the Barisan Nasional (57%) and negative to the Pakatan Rakyat (26%); for the New Straits Times, the bulk of its 141 reports were also positive to the BN, though it had a significant number of stories that were neutral. The Sun had showed a more balanced representation even though it had the least stories (34); while The Star's reporting of stories that were neutral is worth noting as was its reporting of stories positive to the Pakatan Rakyat.

The report looks at the quality of the neutral stories and the slant in the reporting of the rest, in relation to the coverage of the independent candidates, Pakatan Rakyat, the polling watchdog MAFREL and the reportage on the results of the by-elections.

Based on the observations, we can conclude that despite expectations of an improved media environment, big media like Utusan Malaysia and New Straits Times continued to provide reports that favoured the BN, were uncritical of the ruling coalition and to the extent of promoting the BN. A very small number of stories found online, particularly for The Star, indicated possibilities of using the online space to provide slightly different content. It is too optimistic to say that the online version of the print newspaper is freer, but small exceptions were noticeable.

The study does not attempt to provide a full view or understanding of media coverage of the by-elections, and we recognise some gaps that need to be filled. Among others, to focus on topical issues to map out more thoroughly the reportage; inclusion of different

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language media; and the dynamics in the newsroom that influence reporting. We hope to pursue some of these in future studies.

2.0 BACKGROUNDOn 13 Feb, the Election Commission (EC) called for by-elections to be held for Bukit Gantang (Parliamentary) and Bukit Selambau (state assembly) on 7 April and nomination day on 29 March. The PAS member of Parliament for Bukit Gantang, Roslan Shaharum passed away on 9 Feb due to a heart attack. On the same day, V. Arumugam from PKR resigned from his seat in Bukit Selambau amidst speculation that he was pressured to cross-over to Barisan Nasional.

The Batang Ai state assembly seat was held by the Sarawak Assistant Sports Minister Datuk Dublin Unting, who after being in coma for nine months, died on 24 Feb. The EC subsequently announced on 4 March that the three elections and nominations to be held simultaneously.

The three elections was much talked about as the platform to gauge the people's reception to the sixth Prime Minister, Najib Razak who was sworn in five days before the polling day. Pakatan Rakyat's (PR) nomination of Nizar Jamaluddin, who was ousted as the Perak Mentri Besar in February to contest in Bukit Gantang was also seen as capitalizing on the public furore over the Perak political crisis. This occurred after three elected state representatives declared they were leaving the PR and became independent members of the assembly but friendly to the BN. Najib led the team to meet the Perak Sultan who subsequently decided that BN had a majority in the state legislative assembly to form the government.

3.0 METHODOLOGY The monitoring of the reporting on the “triple by-elections” of Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau and Batang Ai was for the period of 31 March 2009 to 8 April 2009, following the nomination and polling dates on 29 March 2009 and 7 April 2009,respectively. The newspapers monitored were Utusan Malaysia, New Straits Times, The Star and theSun. In addition to monitoring the newspapers available in the central region, we scanned the online versions of the newspapers, except for theSun, to include stories that were dedicated to the northern region and Sarawak.

In total, we monitored 486 stories. They were assigned into the following categories - Neutral, Positive Barisan Nasional (BN), Negative Pakatan Rakyat (PR), Positive PR, and Others.

The following explains the criteria for each categories:

Neutral- Stories categorised as “neutral” tend not to have the impact of forming support or sympathy for any contesting parties. Reports about the Election Commission and the police activities usually fall under this category. Stories

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under this category that may contain a statement or allegation will have to a large extent views from the contesting sides. The different views are contained within the same article or in separate articles. For example, on 5 April The Star published reactions on the release of ISA detainees ahead of the elections. Both BN's and Pakatan's reactions were reported in two separate articles- Samy: Release will boost BN's chances and Release of 13 detainees won't help Barisan, says Karpal. Both were categorized as neutral.

Positive BN and Positive PR when stories have the potential to garner support and sympathy for the main actors reported. Often stories in these two categories contain one-sided reporting and can also be described as self-promotional. In interpreting the slant of some of the stories, it was felt that those where institutions were the main actors, some had the potential of being positive towards a particular party. For example, the police had issued a ban against flying the party flags while riding motorcyles and the ban on issuing permits for ceramahs by parties that did not field candidates in a particular constituency. The overall impact of the stories were felt to be positive to the BN.

Negative PR- Stories under this category are statements or events that put the Pakatan in a negative light and with the potential impact of drawing negative response to the party. Again, in cases like this, the stories are allegations against the party but with no comments or right of reply from the coalition members, leaving the reader to assume that the allegation was in fact the truth. There is no equivalent category created for BN because no story fulfilled this category.

The monitoring does focus on the BN and the PR parties, and where independent candidates were involved, they were mostly covered in terms of their relationship with the major players. We will be discussing this in detail in the section below. In categorizing the stories about the independents, we have taken the liberty to apply the same yardstick as discussed above. Due to the limited scope of the categories, one inconsistency in this approach is that some reports on the independent candidates were placed in the Neutral category.

In the following sections, we discuss the issues that we observed in the monitoring exercise.

4.0 FINDINGSOf the 486 stories monitored, Utusan Malaysia had the highest number of stories on the by-elections and it also had the highest portion of stories that were positive to the Barisan Nasional (57%) and negative to the Pakatan Rakyat (26%); for the New Straits Times, the bulk of its 141 reports were also positive to the BN, though it had a significant number of stories that were neutral. The Sun had showed a more balanced representation even though it had the least stories (34) with 47% neutral slant, 23% positive to the BN and

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14.7% positive to the PR; while The Star's reporting of stories that were neutral is worth noting at 52% as was its reporting of stories positive to the Pakatan Rakyat at 11%. Table 1: Breakdown of stories by newspapers according to categories

Publication Total number of stories

% Neutral %Positive to BN

%Positive to PR

% Negative to PR

Utusan Malaysia

165 15.7 57 1.2 26

New Straits Times

141 40.5 44 4.4 10.8

The Star 146 52 34.4 11 2.7

The Sun 34 47 23 14.7 14.7

Total 486

4.1 The Quality of Neutral StoriesAlthough not skewed towards any of the candidates' side, they were not skewed towards the voters either. A scan of the headlines indicate that the subjects of the stories were mostly the candidates or the government agencies. Invariably, campaign strategy and controversies, rather than the political actors' plan for the constituency and articulation of local issues, were made into news. Where voters' perspectives were reported in this category, these constituted a negligible number in the Star and in NST, and none in theSun and Utusan Malaysia.

In The Star, though 52 percent of a total 146 stories monitored are neutral, only six stories were voter orientedand interestingly even among the six, not all were available in print. Three under the headlines 'Bukit Selambau voters want development by either party' a narration of Bukit Selambau's folks wishes and feelings by Looi Sue-Chern, and 'Heavy irony in Batang Ai, a remote land of contrasts', and 'Address basic needs, say longhouse residents', about poverty and under-development in Batang Ai, were not featured in the capital edition. There was also stories that were incomplete or one-sided even though the overall impact was not in support of any parties. For instance, a report about the Batang Ai Ibans' inability to pay the loan for their longhouses stopped short of providing a response from the government, which happened to be the debtor. Whenever the questionable integrity of the electoral roll- a perennial malady- is given coverage, there is a noticeable lack of incisiveness. For example, a story about election watchdog MAFREL exposing the deceased still being listed in the electoral roll does not feature the Election Commission's response. A comment about the same issue was given as little space as the lower half of an Editorial column published on 5 May, while the first half of the same column is used to express relief at the general peace and order at the election scenes. While depth in the neutral stories is found to be wanting, The Star has the most number of neutral stories among the papers monitored. It has 75 neutral stories, compared with NST's 58, Utusan's 26, and theSun's 15.

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NST has 41 percent of neutral stories among the 142 articles monitored and only a small portion (5 stories) were voter oriented.One common type of coverage during elections is the use of soft news, and this was obvious in the 3 by-elections. One of weakest soft news was in the NST – an interview with the candidates from BN and PR in Bukit Selambau, S. Ganesan and S.Manikumar who were asked about where they met their wives, why Ganesan's wife did not wear a saree on nomination day, whether they smoked, drank or bought 4D, which temple they went to and where they get their hair cut. Other stories included one about a famous local food stall and a parakeet's prediction for the election outcome. Clearly, these reports pander to curiosity rather than public interest.

Neutral stories in Utusan Malaysia centred largely on the procedural and administrative sides of the elections. Very few actions, statements and controversies involving the political actors were found under this category. Not surprisingly, it has the lowest percentage of neutral stories, only 16 percent out of the total of 165 stories monitored.

theSun has the smallest pool of election stories - only 34 articles during the period selected. Amongst them, 45 percent are reported neutrally. All analysis about the elections in theSun were found to be neutral - 'It's going to close as fatigue sets in', 'Which way the wind blows in Batang Ai', and 'BN upset likely of Pas loses malay support'- something noteworthy among the four publications, but circumscribed by the very small number of articles published.

4.2 Slant in reporting4.2.1 Coverage of the independent candidatesTo a large extent coverage of the independent candidates were dominated by the coverage on the contest between the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional and federal opposition pact Pakatan Rakyat. Although in the three by-elections combined there were 14 independent candidates, with 13 in Bukit Selambau and one in Bukit Gantang, coverage on their candidacy was only6.6 percent, or 32 stories out of the total number of stories monitored in all four newspapers. It was observed that close to two thirds of the stories on the independent candidates were done in ways to given an advantage to the BN and disadvantage the PR.

Where the independence candidates were featured, they were portrayed as having to fend off allegations from Pakatan that they received the backing of BN, their counter allegations of having received offers from the major parties to quit the elections, and the major parties talking down to them about their chances of winning. On the other hand, allegations by the independent candidates against the BN or PR failed to get the responses from the parties accused, belying a pattern of absolving the major parties from having to account for the charge. There were stories about the independent candidates that also had the impact of laying further to BN's advantage. Such reportage was quite apparent, for example, in The Star, half of the 16 stories on the independent candidates was characteristic of this; in the NST, it was 3 out of the 9 stories published,; in theSun, it

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was one of the total four stories;and in Utusan, there were only three stories on the independent candidates of which one was clearly done to disadvantage the PR. In the process, coverage about the independent candidates' campaign messages was neglected.

As mentioned earlier, the independent candidates were concentrated in Bukit Selambau, yet whatever little coverage was left for them was disproportionately focused on the candidate for Bukit Gantang, Kamarul Ramizu. He gets his own space in two reports in The Star, two in NST and one in theSun. Whereas the 13 candidates in Bukit Selambau not only need to share among themselves, but also with the BN or the PR issues.

This trend puts the independent candidates at a disadvantage not only in terms of lack of publicity for their messages, but quite unfairly lins the independent candidates with possibilities of corruption or being part of a strategy of either political party battling against each other. Their strenuous denial is not helped by the fact that there is very scant coverage about and certainly no robust examination of their intentions for the constituency, which, for the voters' benefit, might dispel or confirm the suspicion. The exception was Kamarul Ramizu, whose eccentricity seems to be the reason why he got more coverage than his other more politically experienced counterparts in Bukit Selambau.

4.2.2 Coverage of the Pakatan RakyatTo begin with, in all four newspapers combined, coverage of the PR amounted to just less than 26 percent. There are 115 stories about the PR out of a total 486. Overall, the slant of these reports disadvantaged the PR.

Utusan Malaysia tops the three other dailies with the most negatively-slanted reports for the opposition. Out of its 43 opposition stories, 36 are negative. In terms of percentage, negative reports formed almost 83 percent of the paper's coverage for Pakatan. It only has two neutral stories and two others that paint the Pakatan in positive light. The sheer amount of negative coverage is made up of mostly statements by Pakatan's major opponent, Barisan Nasional, for which the PR was given no space to state their views.

Coverage in other dailies vis-a-vis Utusan Malaysia, was different where the opposition coalition got between 19 to 42 percent positive coverage from these newspapers, and at least 25 percent neutral reporting.

Table 2: Slant in reporting of the Pakatan Rakyat

Publication %Positive to PR

%Positive to BN

%Neutral %Negative to PR

Utusan Malaysia 5 7 5 83

New Straits Times 17 7 29 47

The Star 14 3 40 43

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The Sun 42 8 25 25

It was observed that when both parties are reported in the same story, Barisan Nasional invariably gets more weight and better portrayal than Pakatan. The other trend particular to Utusan Malaysia is that statements from the BN officials concerning the opposition sometimes turned into direct promotion of BN.

It was also observed that the coverage of alleged misconducts by those allied to Pakatan and Barisan Nasional is lopsided. Invariably, the allegations against the former are given more attention. The Star and Utusan reported former PKR division chief, Kalai Vanar accusing individuals from Pakatan of harassment, while an Utusan report alleged Pas supporters obstructed BN election workers in their work. But a sexual harassment allegation against BN workers by an alleged victim from Pakatan was not found in the papers but only on the online sources.

On top of being under reported, there was an imbalance in the reporting of the PR candidates, notably in Batang Ai, where the PKR had fielded Jawah Gerang. Though his track record as a former five-term parliamentarian for the Lubok Antu constituency merit press inquiry, Jawah was largely marginalised. He didn't at all get a dedicated report and scarcely got reported in first person.

4.2.3 Coverage of MAFREL There are eight stories on the election watchdog MAFREL (Malaysians for Free and Fair election), where five of them were found in The Star, and one each in NST, Utusan Malaysia and theSun. Contrary to updates found in the MAFREL blog, most of these stories reflected the election process favourably. This clearly indicates selective reporting where critical issues, which might put the government agencies in bad light were not highlihgted. For example, the only occasion where NST, Utusan and theSun reported MAFREL, on 31 March, concerned the group commending the Election Commission (EC) and the police role in keeping order during nomination day in Batang Ai. But MAFREL's account posted on its blog depicted a stand-off between the police and PAS supporters as the police tried to seize their party flag on the nomination day. NST also added that MAFREL has certified the election in Batang Ai to be clean and fair in its rather prominently placed story- No dirty tactics used, says election watchdog. Without anymore coverage on MAFREL in the following days, in which the election watchdog found irregularities in the electoral rolls of all three constituencies, the lone story in NST becomes a one-sided portrayal of the election process.

A couple of articles in The Star, on 4 and 5 April each, highlighted the issue of the names of dead voters still in the electoral roll. The first article featuring MAFREL's findings however was not available in the capital edition. The second is an editorial which, as mentioned in the above section on neutral story, buries the issue in the second half of the article. Both these reports exempted a response from the Election Commission.

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Other issues raised by MAFREL, such as it disagreeing with the police ban on flags and ceramah by parties other than the candidates' were not reported. Readers are informed about the issuer of the ban and the responses from the affected parties, but they are denied a critical assessment and information on the exercise of elections from bodies such as MAFREL.

Putting MAFREL stories under Neutral might appear to be applying the standard inconsistently when stories about the police and Election Commission are categorized under Positive BN if their challenger's side of the story was not featured. In MAFREL's case, it is arguable that since what the group alleged was not being countered by the Election Commission, it should be construed as favouring the opposition. We contend that the standalone reporting of MAFREL fits the Neutral category as MAFREL is a non-political organization and not known to be aligned with any political party, while the government has vested interest in its agencies and this warrants a higher test for the agencies to appear neutral to the public.

4.2.4 Coverage of the results and polling dayA significant trend in the reports about the results is the playing down of the opposition win in Bukit Gantang and Bukit Selambau among the papers except for theSun. In general, the papers framed the results as “status quo” judging from their main headlines. The following is the individual observations for the papers.

theSunThe opening line in the story on the frontpage- BN 1, PKR 2 - declares that the outcome preserves the "status quo". Overall, the story contains a balanced mix of quotes from the parties. The statements by the victors, Nizar Jamaluddin for Bukit Gantang comes first followed by S. Manikumar for Bukit Selambau. BN heavyweights such as Deputy PM Muhyiddin Yassin, MCA President Ong Tee Keat, UMNO vice presidents Hishamuddin Hussein, Gerakan President Koh Tsu Koon and Sarawak chief minister Taib Mahmud, get the bulk of the space for reactions. The BN's responses slightly outnumbered the opposition's, but the story ended with the PKR president, Anwar Ibrahim's statement of victory.

The StarThe Star's story on the front page was titled Status quo(PKR 2, BN1). It reported the results of the three by-elections in a matter-of-fact manner, dwelling in details such as the numbers of votes the contestants received and the background for the elections. In a separate story about Nizar's win in Bukit Gantang, the report attributed the result to “sympathy votes”. Interestingly, the same story has a different headline the online medium. In the website, it is Nizar beats Barisan man with increased majority. In the print edition, it is a watered-down revision that reads Nizar- from MB to MP. For Bukit Selambau, a separate story prioritized the fact that the independents lost all of their deposit. Any reason for Manikumar's win, compared to that of Nizar, was not even mentioned.

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New Straits Times (NST)Unlike The Star and theSun, NST did not have a main story capturing the results of the three by-elections. Instead NST reported the results in three individual stories, or one for each constituency. The noteworthy story was on Bukit Gantang where Nizar won. Like The Star, it is a matter of fact reporting and, playing down Nizar's win, reporting that the victory “was not a surprise as political observers had expected him to garner sympathy votes”. Nizar's speech was subsequently buried in the last para in a passive sentence. NST's story for Bukit Selambau opens with the fact that Manikumar won and proceeded to portray BN as having mounted a formidable campaign against Pakatan. Two additional paragraphs about Manikumar are sandwiched between quotes from BN leaders that occupied most of the story.

The NST also published two commentaries about the results. Zubaidah Abu Bakar who wrote Opposition win a clear signal acknowledges the lost of confidence in BN, and concludes that the incumbent government must go beyond introducing new, but rhetorical concept to win people's confidence back. The other commentary, The tenuous referendum against Najib works better as bragging right by Azmi Anshar, painstakingly refuted the opposition's campaign claim that the elections served as a “referendum” of the new PM Najib Razak. Nizar's win was not only “expected”, but also “merely one more bragging rights trophy in the political one-upmanship game and nothing more intricate than that”. In essence, it calls for confidence in Najib, who is said to be committed to the more important job of revitalising the economy.

Utusan MalaysiaUtusan also carried individual stories for each constituency. PR's wins in Bukit Selambau and Bukit Gantang were reported in much the same way as NST and The Star, it did not capture the mood of the winners but dealt mainly with the results of the by-elections. The EC was the primary source of the stories and there were no quotes at all from the Pakatan's candidates, even for Bukit Gantang where BN was defeated.

The stories in NST, The Star and Utusan discussed above are essentially neutral and detached reportings when taken as standalone reports (except for the NST's report for Bukit Selambau, which belies a clear bias towards BN). When viewed together with the accompanying reports - about BN's win in Batang Ai, the happenings on the polling day, and various reactions from BN leaders - it appears that the limelight due for Pakatan's victory was redirected to BN's accomplishment in Batang Ai and its readiness to take the defeats in its stride. Pakatan's victory was even marred by reports about their members blocking vehicles suspected of ferrying “phantom voters”. Quoting the police , the reports said there were no “phantom voters”, implicating rashness on the part of Pakatan. The overall coverage supported the observation that playing down Pakatan's victory was part and parcel of the agenda.

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5.0 MAIN CONCLUSIONS1. The mainstream media continued its approach in reporting the by-elections, similar to the trend in the 2008 general elections. The hype about media changes to reflect the changes in society came to naught as newsroom behaviour showed that when the leadership was in trouble, the media would do its most to support the ruling government. The monitoring findings echoed those from the monitoring done a year ago.

2. It also showed that the closer the newspaper was to the power base of UMNO, the more likely it was to adopt a pro-BN strategy, at the cost of its professional and ethical practices. The degree of bias strongly correlated to the ownership, in which papers that are more directly owned by UMNO display stronger bias. As an illustration, Utusan Malaysia, which are directly owned by UMNO has the most positive BN stories (57 percent), followed by NST, which is owned by UMNO through the Media Prima conglomerate (43 percent), followed by The Star, whose owner is not UMNO but BN component party MCA (33 percent). theSun is owned by Vincent Tan, who is said to be close with the fourth Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, and it has 24 percent of positive BN stories.

3. The online space for the mainstream media seems to be the site where more illuminating stories can be found. The numbers of such stories are marginal, but it raises the question as to whether there are different stakes in play between the print capital edition, the regional print/online edition, where the latter spaces can afford to push the boundary a little bit more. As mentioned above, lengthy people-driven story narrating their grouses, story about MAFREL and the issue of phantom voters, and relatively lengthier portrayal of PR do not find their way to the capital edition. In The Star, 'Bukit Selambau voters want development by either party' by Looi Sue-Chern, 'Heavy irony in Batang Ai, a remote land of contrasts', and 'Address basic needs, say longhouse residents', 'Names of dead in electoral rolls, says MAFREL' and 'It will be tough to sway Bkt Gantang folk: Wan Azizah' by Clara Chooi are not featured in the capital edition. In Utusan Malaysia, a story from Bernama about the Bukit Selambau electoral roll containing 15 names who are over 100 years old was reordered in the capital edition to highlight the fact that Bukit Selambau are getting bigger ballot papers, which, in the online/regional edition edition, comes after the electoral roll issue. In NST, the solemn coverage of Nizar's victory in Bukit Gantang in the print edition is in contrast to its video coverage, which captured the jubilant celebration by a massive number of Nizar's supporters. Whether it is true or not, unfortunately, the observations reinforce the notion that the online space is the site to go for "freer" types of content and that conversely, the print is vested with the interest of the powerful.

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Gaps in the researchOne of the experiences in the monitoring of three regions was the different coverage in the regional editions of the newspapers. Without having considered this as a problem, we only focused on the main newspapers available in the central region or the main edition. In order to make up for the gaps, we accessed the online versions of the newspapers, except for theSun. This proved challenging as well as we may have missed out some stories that also did not make it to the online versions. As in the previous research, one of our weaknesses is in including Chinese and Tamil language news in our study and we were not able to show possible variances in the reportage of the by-elections.

Suggestions

1. Future research should include other publications and online sites owned by political parties in the opposition

2. We should identify topical issue for the research to map out how specific issues are reported, for example on phantom voters and the extent to which the reports explored the issue sufficiently, how they were presented etc.

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MEDIA MONITORING REPORT: Online Media Coverage of the 2009 Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, and Batang Ai By-Elections

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 2008, the Center for Independent Journalism (CIJ) conducted a comprehensive Media Monitoring Survey of Malaysia’s most prominent newspapers during the 12th general elections. The study found that in terms of political coverage, every one of these outlets tended to skew their reporting in favor of the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition, with Utusan Malaysia being the worst offender. In its conclusion, the report opined that given the broken state of the Malaysian mainstream media, the public would increasingly come to rely upon online news sources to ensure fair, balanced, and professional coverage. This was further supported a number of surveys conducted in the post-election period that showed the influence of the online tool on voter choices.

This report represents the first of CIJ’s efforts to test that assertion, focusing specifically on three websites’ (The Malaysian Insider, Malaysiakini, and The Nut Graph) coverage of the Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, and Batang Ai by-election campaigns. The goal of this study was not simply to determine whether these online media outlets harbored any specific bias in favor of one party or another; rather, we sought to highlight all arenas in need of greater diligence and professionalism, using the Society for Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics as its standard. In doing so, we also aimed to chronicle what the online media was doing right, to highlight those institutions and individuals whose devotion to their work manifested itself as reporting of superlative quality.

Our conclusions simultaneously strengthened our resolve that a fair and balanced media was indeed possible for Malaysia, while emphasizing the need for real, decisive change in some arenas. We can confidently assert that the online news space does allow for a degree of genuine free expression and dialogue in Malaysia. Furthermore, we detected no discernible, systemic bias in favor of one race, ideology, ruler, or political party.

This is not to say that we did not find any problems, however. In fact, major breaches of professionalism concerning not only the presentation of content, but the actual makeup of that content itself, pervaded all three of the sources in question. Frequently, the competing presence of polarized viewpoints—both pro-BN and, to a much smaller but equally problematic extent, pro-Pakatan—substituted for actual balance and objectivity. This problem became magnified when sources chose to stream feed from BERNAMA, the state’s news agency. In terms of the composition of content, a proliferation of a) vague, unclear, or misleading statements; b) untested, unverified, or unverifiable claims; and c) reporting that is indistinguishable from comment, or is otherwise confused about its purpose abounded across all three outlets in question.

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Our aim is not simply to criticize. Rather, we hope that by bringing these problems to light while simultaneously showcasing the Malaysian online media’s genuine strengths, we can contribute to the improvement of media across the board.

Introduction

The Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) was proud to conclude the 2008 calendar year with a media monitoring of the 12th general elections, involving six publications. The study documented a systemic and deep-seeded bias in favor of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition. While the extent of this bias could vary from outlet to outlet—reaching its peak inside the pages of Malay-language daily Utusan Malaysia—such deliberate manipulation of the dialogue was, on the whole, very disturbing to proponents of media freedom.

The report suggested that until the mainstream print media became a more suitable means for legitimate expression—until certain long-term goals like independent ownership and legislative reform could be achieved—Malaysians would look to the online news space as their source of choice for legitimate coverage and dialogue. Indeed, the popularity of websites like Malaysiakini, which recently celebrated its tenth year in operation, and increasingly of blogs like Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s Malaysia Today, suggests a hunger amongst the Malaysian public for a different, more neutral, more diverse exchange of views.

But is the Malaysian online media, as it exists today, really that space?

This was the question that we strove to answer as we compiled this report, and it’s a question that digs much deeper under the surface than issues of bias and skewed reporting. The real issue, at its core, was: Are Malaysians getting the coverage they deserve? Are stories presented in clear and effective language that allows the reader to distinguish between fact and opinion? Are a diversity of viewpoints represented, with all legitimate sides enjoying the opportunity to present their case? Can readers be sure that what they are reading means something, represents actual research and analysis rather than the mere restatement of rumor or supposition?

In short, we wanted to know if the online media was doing its job.

Methodology

For the previous survey, we actually constructed a quantitative scale with which to measure pro- or anti-partisan favoritism objectively. This proved incredibly useful when the existence of bias was more or less postulated. For this analysis, however, we predicted a much less overt slanting of opinion, if such a slant existed at all. As such, a numeric rating would be of much less utility than an actual direct analysis of problematic

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quotes, techniques, styles, and modes of presentation. It simply wouldn’t be all that meaningful.

We decided, rather, to first synthesize a broad conception of the entire body of material as a whole and see what, if any, conclusions we could draw from looking at the raw data. Once we were able to do that, we would then lift from the body of examined documents the most illustrative examples of the point we were trying to make, and include those in this report, so that the reasons behind why a particular issue was problematic would become apparent. We intended for these to be a cursory overview of a more comprehensive body of data, the whole of which you can view in Appendix A.

This left, of course, the problem of which documents to analyze.

Fortunately, the triad of by-elections in Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau, and Batang Ai proved to be the perfect framework for this analysis. Set immediately after the recent UMNO elections and the ensuing regime change that saw the ascension of Najib Abdul Razak into the spot vacated by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, these elections would certainly spawn ample coverage from the far corners of the web. Furthermore, with each election providing its own unique ‘mini-narrative’—the ‘Constitutional Crisis’ and ‘Referendum’ in Perak, the unprecedented number of independents in Bukit Selambau, and the struggle for the Dayak vote in Batang Ai—any one outlet’s attempt to control the flow of content was likely to be exposed against the backdrop of a more diverse dialogue.

We decided to therefore monitor all of the news articles featured on English-language websites Malaysiakini (www.malaysiakini.com), the Malaysian Insider (www.themalaysianinsider.com), and The Nut Graph (http://thenutgraph.com) that dealt specifically with the by-election campaigns or results. When the term ‘online media’ is heretofore used in this report, it is to be taken as shorthand for these three popular websites, unless its usage is specifically stated otherwise, and is not to be construed as purporting to exceed these narrow limitations. Originally, the scope of our research was going to extend into the opinion and editorial columns of these websites as well, but quickly we realized that a) documenting ‘bias’ in these sections was only problematic if it manifested itself in the reporting of actual news, and b) that opinion and editorial pieces, if presented as such, hold themselves to an entirely different standard of professional integrity than do pieces that purport their own objectivity by their very nature.

While recognising that the three selected sites contain spaces for public interaction through the comments section, we have not included the comments in our analysis, though the dynamics of the public discussion will certainly be a useful area of study.

As such, we limited the scope of our analysis strictly to ‘news’.

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Results

Perhaps the most encouraging result to emerge from this analysis was the conclusion that none of these three websites were guilty of any systemic bias either in favor of or against any one race, ideology, ruler, or political party. Frequently, the ‘opinion’ or ‘editorial’ sections of these websites can display more overt political leanings—Malaysiakini’s YourSay section1 during the elections was one of many good examples of this—but those leanings tend not to spill over into the websites’ news reporting, and certainly not to a greater extent than the natural variance that comes with a multitude of different authorial voices. While some individual stories display definite signs of bias, the media space as a whole in this case does not.

It is important to mention at this point that a fair, balanced, professional media is not in and of itself partisan. Objectivity is not pro-Opposition. And while Pakatan may advocate for media freedom in some of their campaign rhetoric, that does not correspondingly invert the equation and make media freedom a Pakatan idea. This is why we have actively chosen to reject the commonly-accepted notion that the online media is predominantly a Pakatan-sympathetic space. In discussion forums, potentially. In opinion and editorial columns, frequently. But in terms of the news itself? Definitely not.

Making the case for this assertion, quantitatively or qualitatively, proves complicated, though, because of the inherent difficulty of demonstrating lack-of-bias on an item-by-item basis. How do you depict something that you’re asserting isn’t there to begin with?

We’ve chosen to address this quandary by highlighting a few pieces (or categories of pieces) that do demonstrate an overt lack of objectivity, and using our ability to isolate these pieces from the body of regular discourse to show that they are not the norm.

A Level Playing Field: Who Has It?

This segues us nicely, actually, into our first major criticism. We hold that, for election coverage in this particular instance, the online media displays no overt signs of bias. Furthermore, we assert that, on average, online journalists display a higher degree of professionalism than do their print-media counterparts. But while these two findings are encouraging, the online media is not without its flaws. These flaws manifest themselves both in the way content is presented—that is, in the way the subject matters of particular pieces of news are organized—and in the composition of that content itself.

We do not feel it is unreasonable to posit that the Malaysian online media feels a certain burden to strive towards higher standards of journalistic integrity than does the mainstream Malaysian press. As such, it can be self-conscious of its purported

1 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101337

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objectivity. This self-consciousness, coupled with the need to provide up-to-date news reporting, leads The Malaysian Insider and The Nut Graph to stream articles from state news agency BERNAMA (Berita Nasional Malaysia) onto their main pages, to disastrous results. It is as if the presence of absurdly Pro-BN content will deflect some of the criticism that these websites are pro-Opposition. Similarly, Malaysiakini has on a number of occasions juxtaposed original pro-BN content with pro-Opposition content, as if two extreme positions ‘cancel out’ and produce objectivity.

We reiterate: To occupy two competing poles of discourse is not to occupy the middle ground. You have two goalkeepers in a football match that are positioned exactly opposite one another, yet neither stands at midfield. Journalism strives to maintain an environment where all reasonable viewpoints can interact on a level playing field. It isn’t necessary to present an extremist position, or an article with an extremely slanted perspective, in order to ‘justify’ more professional journalism. What you have in that case is one article that is professional, and one that isn’t. Websites should simply strive to eliminate the one that isn’t.

For example, in a Malaysiakini piece entitled “Najib to Abolish Umno’s Quota System”2—published on March 28, immediately before the campaign season began—the piece’s author mentions that “Najib slammed those who practiced slander in thinly-veiled criticism directed at the opposition, especially PKR leader Anwar Ibrahim.” This implies, without evidence, that Anwar practices slander, and does not once allow space for the opposition to respond or produce a counterclaim. The rest of the article progresses along the same lines, featuring hosts of allegations from Najib without any opposition rebuttal or commentary.

Similarly, in the April 2 article “BN’s Sexy Girls Fish for Votes”3—the same article inside which Ahmad Zahid Hamidi claimed that performances by scantily-clad Chinese singer-dancers were “a part of Chinese culture,” without criticism, follow up, or comment from the author—the author makes the statement that “[Gerakan Deputy President] Chang hit out at claims by Pakatan Rakyat that the by-election served as a referendum for the power transition in Perak.” But this notion of by-election-as-referendum was hardly just a “claim” by Pakatan. Indeed, it was the prevailing narrative across all the major media covering this election. The attempt to present this mainstream perspective as partisan concedes undue territory to the BN party line and attempts to belittle the reality that the Perak constituency very well might take issue with the transition. As mentioned before, it is very dangerous to polarize issues that are not inherently polar, to make partisan that which is simply true.

We bring these articles up not only to highlight breaches of professionalism (which, we emphasize, may be entirely unintentional) but to demonstrate that Malaysiakini does not at all serve as a Pakatan mouthpiece—as we’ve seen, it can in fact be far from it. The

2 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101213 3 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101512

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article “Jabu Calls Bloggers Specialist Instigators”4 actually goes so far as to employ scare quotes to belittle criticisms by Dayak bloggers.

That said, pro-Pakatan favoritism can manifest itself as well. The April 5 article “Tense Standoff Between MIC, PKR Supporters”5 paints an unduly sympathetic and egregiously one-sided picture of the PKR coalition, going so far as to actually present events from their perspective. “PKR leaders took pains to urge their supporters to remain calm but soon the abuses from the MIC side was too much to stomach for the PKR supporters, [sic]” it claims, postulating without evidence the existence of both ‘pains’ and ‘abuses’ while articulating neither. “The MIC side,” it continues, “now numbering about 50 people, was trying its best to ruin the PKR ceramah.” Was it really? How would the author know what the MIC side was trying to do? Maybe the PKR supporters feel like that is what is going on, but a journalist’s job is not to report what one particular side feels. A journalist’s job is to report what happens.

Articles like these, we emphasize, are the exception rather than the rule in Malaysiakini. But the existence of tremendous favoritism shown towards both sides reinforces our point: that just because one website serves as a conduit for both extremely pro-BN and extremely pro-Pakatan pieces, that doesn’t mean that breaches of professionalism in favor of either side are any more acceptable.

For the Malaysian Insider and The Nut Graph, the problem is both more expansive and more systematic. Both of these websites choose to host extremely biased, extremely abrasive pro-BN content from BERNAMA, creating an awkward situation whereby online news sources become accountable for content with which they do not necessarily agree. Nevertheless, any time an agency chooses to host material, it becomes responsible for the nature of that material, and BERNAMA content contains more overt violations of professional ethics than any other category of content monitored in this survey.

The nature of these violations varies widely. Sometimes the problem is simply sloppy writing, as this excerpt from an April 5 piece entitled “Which Way in Batang Ai”6 demonstrates: “Then there was an intending independent candidate who was all gung-ho about contesting but never got to submit his nomination paper although he and his seconder and proposer had entered the nomination centre.” There is no telling what that sentence, or the phrase “all gung-ho,” actually means. Or an author will simply gush without context or pretense about the perceived virtues of a particular candidate: “He [Datuk S Ganesan] also said that the response received was very encouraging and many voters wanted to know the candidate closely and the party capable of bringing development and restore the country's bleak economy”7. Grammatical errors are again

4 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101501 5 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101710 6 http://thenutgraph.com/which-way-in-batang-ai 7 “Ganesan Claims Meeting Half The Voters, Targets The Rest,”

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/22089-ganeson-claims-meeting-half-the-voters-targets-the-rest. This article, a glowing recap of Ganesan’s beat on the campaign trail, also

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duly noted. But the most common and by far the most prolific error involved the conflation of a quote or paraphrase with the author’s own opinion, and a muddled distinction between the two.

“Muhammad also regarded the opposition’s action of making baseless accusations, including calling the government inhumane, through their banners, posters and other campaign material, as extreme.” This quote comes from an article entitled “Muhammad: Opposition Can Face Action For Contempt of Court”8, and consists almost entirely of Muhd Taib leveling unsupported and unverified accusations at the Pakatan coalition. Note the presentation of the paraphrase: who is calling the opposition’s accusation “baseless,” Muhammad or the author? Another article replaces Muhammad with Gerakan President Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon but retains the format of unchallenged accusation-slinging:

“Dr Koh added that from initial surveys done in Bukit Selambau, most of the people were receptive of BN after realising that they had been deceived by the opposition.

He added that the survey also showed Ganesan, being a local-born, was a very popular man in the area and most voters knew him well while some were full of praise for him.

Dr Koh said cracks had also appeared in the opposition’s run up to the by-election as a group of people had decided to quit the party and support BN” 9.

At no point is the opposition given space to respond, and at no point is it clarified whether it is Koh or the author who is asserting that anyone had been “deceived by the opposition”—indeed, at no point is the nature of that “deception” made clear at all!

A full list of problematic BERNAMA articles hosted on The Malaysian Insider and The Nut Graph can be seen in the Appendix to this Report. What is clear is that such pieces fail to hold themselves to any reasonable professional standards of objectivity, neutrality, and even to basic principles of clarity, quality, and grammatical coherence. Contrasting this flagrantly pro-BN material with the otherwise-solid output of both websites does not contribute to a healthier overall dialogue by ‘allowing every perspective to be heard’; it subtracts from that dialogue by exposing the reader to deliberately-manipulative material that can hardly be described as “journalism”. Such material should not be allowed anywhere on the website of a responsible journalistic medium.

makes a laughable attempt at ‘objective distance’ at the very end when, after a fawning, doting review of Ganesan’s performance and the intense fortitude required to meet people door to door, it goes on to say, “Bernama found PKR also conducted door-to-door campaigns.”

8 http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/22060-muhammad-opposition-can-face-action-for-contempt-of-court

9 “Gerakan to Adopt Family-Oriented Approach During Campaign,” http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21826-gerakan-to-adopt-family-oriented-approach-during-campaign

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Clarity is Key

Everything we’ve discussed so far has involved problems with the presentation of content: competing biases, one-sided claims. But, as stated before, the overall journalistic climate has not fallen victim to an overt, systematically-skewed perspective.

Far more prevalent are errors within the content itself, errors that, rather than marginalize an entire universe of discourse, render specific pieces at best ambiguous and at worst actively misleading. These problems manifest themselves across three primary avenues, namely:

3. Vague, unclear, or meaningless statements;4. Unchallenged, unverified, or unverifiable claims;5. Confusion about the tone or purpose of a piece of news; the conflation of

reporting with comment.

Each of these errors violates one or more of the Rules of Reporting spelled out in the Journalists’ Code of Ethics. We draw particular attention to the following:

1. “The primary responsibility of the media is to report correctly and to respect the public’s right for accurate, fair, and timely news.”

2. “The media is to be critical of news sources by way of checking facts and other pieces of information in ensuring accuracy. Facts are to be checked as careful as possible, even if they have been published earlier.”

3. “All reporting shall be strictly distinguished from comment. Analysis, commentary, and other opinion pieces shall be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context…The reader is to be able to distinguish between statements of fact and statements of comment.”

4. “The media shall eschew the publication of inaccurate, baseless, misleading, or distorted materials.”

Vagueness and lack of clarity do not seem, at first glance, to be tremendously egregious violations. After all, how much harm is really caused if the reader doesn’t understand every single word in a news report, anyway?

The trouble is twofold. First, the deliberate nature of journalistic writing is such that every word an author chooses to use is laden with meaning. Readers are accustomed to reports that relay pieces of news with efficiency, economy, and clarity, and thus every surplus modifier, every extraneous clause, every imprecisely-chosen piece of diction has the potential to give the reader an entirely different idea about what took place. Second, there is a fine line between a statement’s being unclear and a statement being downright misleading. The journalist is a lens through which his or her audience sees the world, and that lens must not distort what it sees.

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Suppositions and Subjective Claims

It is crucial for any claim made in a piece of news to actually provide value to the audience; if it merely iterates a potential outcome or series of outcomes, or otherwise simply posits a potential fact, it gives that outcome undue, unmerited weight in the reader’s eyes. Take, for example, the following claim:

Pakatan Rakyat may just taste defeat in the Bukit Selambau state by-election if and unless it resolves, once and for all, the problem of getting the right candidate for the seat when nomination opens tomorrow morning10.

Such a statement sounds like it is raising a legitimate doubt about Pakatan Rakyat’s chances—except that any party anywhere “may taste defeat” if it doesn’t “resolve” the “problem of getting the right candidate for the seat.” That statement is true by definition; no campaign manager anywhere is advocating the fielding of ‘wrong’ candidates. Yet a reader, upon reading this sentence, gets the idea that Pakatan has its back against the wall and faces an impending loss unless it can get itself together and resolve this phantom problem.

The same article goes on to commit a similar error when it states, “It could be a local popular independent candidate who profit [sic] from the loss of votes for Pakatan”11. First of all, the phrasing is awkward; “a local popular independent candidate” could be one certain candidate in particular, or one of the many independent candidates vying for the spot. But the broader error is, again, one of supposition: a lot of things could happen. Unless some reason is stated, though, for why it is likely for a particular event to happen, the singling that one event out gives it unmerited, undue weight.

While this type of statement is problematic because it doesn’t have a meaning, other classes of statements fail because, while the potential for meaning is definitely present, the author of a piece has made no attempt to elucidate what that meaning actually is. In many cases, the audience is left free to assume for itself what the author was really trying to say.

Often, this type of error can come about because of too-frequent uses of adjectives, as it did here: “What makes this contest even more interesting is that there are 13 confident independent aspirants battling side by side with bigwigs from Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat”12. How exactly did the author come to know that they were “confident”—did he or she interview every single one? What does “confident” even mean? Other times, the error manifests itself in the form of an ambiguous clause, a modifier that appears factual on the surface but in reality couches a whole host of value-judgments an unstated opinions. “But for Hindraf, the group that has forever transformed the Indians politically,” said one author at the Malaysian Insider, “the Bukit Selambau

10 “PKR May Lose Out On Crucial Indian Vote Bank,” http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101210, 11 Ibid.12 “Bkt. Selambau Creates History With 15 Candidates,” http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101241

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by-election is still anyone's game”13. While Hindraf’s influence has of course been undeniable, “transforming the Indians politically” is an argument you articulate and clarify over the course of pages and pages of exposition. You don’t simply slip it into the middle of a sentence and expect your readers to understand what you mean when you say it. With either error, the problem is identical: an author is not conveying news.

The worst kind of violation, though, and the one that borders most closely on actively misleading the audience, is the kind of statement that speculates as to something that may or may not have already happened. This is different from the next section’s category of “unchallenged, unverified, or unverifiable claims” because the violation isn’t passive; the author actively asserts something with no basis in reality, or no mechanism with which the reader can discern its meaning. These breaches are serious, and must be halted as quickly as possible.

“PKR's candidate for the Bukit Selambau by-election may be an inexperienced politician, a fact that probably did not go down well with some of the party's patriarchs”14, says one Malaysiakini article. It is important to recognize that this claim is not, strictly speaking, false, in that it only purports to highlight a possibility (namely, that certain “party patriarchs” were upset). The problem is that it is not a journalist’s job to highlight possibilities. Again: “The primary responsibility of the media is to report correctly, and to respect the public’s right for accurate, fair, and timely news.” Anything a journalist says needs to be backed up by actual evidence.

Another Malaysiakini article by the same author actually commits a worse violation of the same error when it says, regarding the successful campaign of independent V Arumugam, “His blueprint to success, except for his resignation, is what the independents want to follow now”15. What “blueprint”? Is there an actual stratagem for success he employed that the author has discovered, through interviews with all 15 independent candidates, they are all trying to emulate? As a journalist, you can’t simply assert, “Oh, you understand what I mean.” That can never be taken for granted. But the biggest flaw to this particular piece is the “…except for his resignation…” bit. This is like saying “I am the greatest footballer in the world, except for all the people who are better than me.” It’s irresponsible to brush significant events under the rug as if they were inconsequential.

Perhaps the most flagrant instance of this kind of error, though, occurred in a April 5 article entitled, “Jawah Spurns Town for the Interior”16. Concerning PKR candidate Jawah Gerang’s inaccessibility and silence with regard to some comments he made in 2007 concerning the Barisan Nasional’s ability to govern, the article remarks, “In any case, it was debatable that if contacted, he would have seen the need to respond to the BN

13 “MIC quietly confident of a comeback,” http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21813-mic-quietly-confident-of-a-comeback

14 “Manikumar Roots for Bangsa Malaysia,” http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101537 15 “Independents Vot to Put Up A Good Fight,” http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101499 16 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101713

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strategy of trying to get him to be hoist with his own petard.” The author actually manages to speculate about what someone would do if hypothetically someone else asked him something based on yet another thing that yet another person might be trying to get that first person to do. If you’re confused—well, believe me, so were we.

Other examples of this kind of violation can be found in the Appendix.

‘It’s True, I Promise’

The public is under no obligation to believe something just because a journalist says it, or just because someone with whom a journalist spoke says it (unless the journalist is giving evidence of that person’s holding a specific opinion, in which case the statement counts as evidence in and of itself). Journalists are responsible for providing evidence to back up their claims—and, when something appears amiss, to reconcile any apparent contradictions.

One of the difficulties with spotting and correcting this kind of error is that frequently it can appear innocuous. A Nut Graph author writes, “In the report, [B K] Kandasamy claimed of the many individuals who engaged [MIC President Datuk S] Ganesan's services, only 50 have seen successful construction of their houses17”. No big deal, right? Factual, straightforward, to the point. But there is a problem. By stating ‘only’—and contrasting it with ‘many’—the article implies that Ganesan should be held at fault for something, or at least that Kandasamy believes that Ganesan should be held at fault for something. And while the author refers to a report brought against Ganesan by Kandasamy, it does not quote the ‘many’ as originating directly from that report. Without knowing how many individuals purportedly engaged Ganesan’s services, we cannot evaluate the import or veracity of the claim.

Other times, these problematic assertions appear to emerge out of poorly-thought-through stylistic considerations. A Malaysiakini article about Anwar’s role in the campaign writes the following about his trek through Batang Ai:

By the time Anwar arrived in the early evening, the upper longhouse was empty of residents except for Ran, the frail looking chief. Ran’s wards were waiting with residents of the lower house to listen to the man whom they hope would be prime minister someday18.

The clause on the end of the final sentence, “the man whom they hope would be prime minister someday,” adds a layer of desperation, yearning, and anticipation to the preceding scene, building the drama and furthering the narrative. It’s good writing—but it’s not good journalism. Even though earlier in the article it is established that the “lower house” residents were all Pakatan supporters, it does not follow that all of them hope that Anwar will one day be Malaysia’s Prime Minister. To assert that it does is

17 “PPP Vice-President Nadarajan Joins PKR”, http://thenutgraph.com/ppp-vice-president-nadarajan-joins-pkr

18 “Anwar Tells Iban Poor It’s Time For Change”, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101490

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tremendously irresponsible, because it purports to define what an entire group of people hope for their future.

A similar problem emerges in “BN Unleashes Ezam on Bukit Selambau”19, when the author characterizes a group of independent candidates as “in the race just to teach the Pakatan-run state a lesson”. It sounds nice, but unless the author has spoken to each of those candidates, and each of those candidates has said, “I want to teach this state a lesson,” this claim isn’t valid. It is also, incidentally, very vague.

There are journalists who try to get around this need to verify every claim directly by speaking in generalities—using terms like “rumor has it,” “it would appear,” “it is said,” “it seems,” “undoubtedly,” “the fact that…” or “[something] is seen as…” to talk about ‘commonly-accepted’ truths20. The trouble with this technique is that an author who uses it simply chooses to substitute an unverified claim with an unverifiable one. It’s impossible to disprove what “is said” or what something “is seen as” by an entire group of people, technically speaking. But those kinds of assertions don’t mean anything, and they are asking for the reader to trust that the author has summarized an issue accurately rather than allowing the reader to draw those conclusions for him- or herself. A superior tactic is for the author to provide evidence of what is ‘undoubtedly’ a ‘fact’ by eliciting quotes from people on the ground, or by demonstrating a claim factually with empirical evidence.

These types of errors are active errors made by journalists—errors where the journalist is doing something wrong. But another kind of error involves not what the journalist does, but what the journalist fails to do. These come about when a source decides to make a claim that appears, on the surface, to have some serious problems, and yet despite the seeming incongruity the journalist doesn’t challenge the source to back that statement up with evidence.

Sometimes, journalists themselves can actually provoke these types of responses. “What is your main message to voters?” one journalist asks the Barisan Nasional’s Ismail Saffian21. “Okay,” says Ismail, “I want to help them, help solve the problems they face, if I can be chosen to be their MP because I’m the government candidate. Certainly I’d be able to help them.”

19 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101345 20 See http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101385, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101388,

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21780-bukit-selambau-indian-votes-may-shift-but-not-by-enough, http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21808-rain-or-shine-ismail-pounds-the-ground, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101201 for some of many, many examples.

21 “BN’s Ismail Finds Things Okay on Campaign Trail,” http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21777-bns-ismail-finds-things-okay-on-campaign-trail -- and, incidentally, what kind of headline is “Finds Things Okay”?

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That is not a message. That is not, in fact, even a coherent sentence. The nature of a person’s campaigning for public office assumes that he or she wants to ‘help people solve problems that they face’ by its very nature. Is a candidate somewhere running on the “I don’t want to help people out at all, actually!” platform? Yet by failing to challenge Ismail's claim, the journalist makes it appear that is what is actually happening! While a journalist doesn’t necessarily endorse a claim by failing to follow it up, a journalist certainly suggests that he or she accepts it. Yet Ismail's statement is so very obviously unacceptable.

Similarly, a speaker in the article “PKR Needs to Mend Fences in Selambau”22 keeps alluding to the influence of an unnamed business tycoon over Anwar Ibrahim, but nowhere does the journalist challenge the speaker to validate his or her assertions, and nowhere is there a quote from either Anwar or a Pakatan representative attempting to repudiate this allegation.

The journalist is entrusted with the tremendous burden of being simultaneously the public’s eyes and voice. With that burden comes the responsibility of providing the members of the public the necessary information to form their own, qualified opinions. This burden must be taken seriously.

Statements of Fact, Statements of Comment

Within the broad field of Journalism there of course exist different styles of stories, and each style is most suitable for one particular purpose or end. Some stories are designed to raise awareness, others are designed to criticize a particular entity or policy, and still others are intended to evoke an emotional response. But the stories covered in this analysis all purport to be News, and the essential, defining characteristics of News are clarity and precision. Through clarity and precision, News stories achieve their intended end: providing the public with accurate, fair, and timely news.

Many of the stories covered in this analysis, though, blur the lines between reporting the news and commenting on it. Several incorporate elements of features writing and of more in-depth professional analysis. Each of these genres has its place, but that place must be clearly distinguished from the everyday reporting of news. Without that distinction, the journalist cannot purport to a level of professional detachment that renders his or her depiction of events believable to the reader.

Sometimes this blurring of the lines occurs with the simple choice to select or omit detail. One Malaysiakini report reads, “10.15am: In Bukit Gantang, the Pakatan crowd is shouting ‘Tangkap Najib'. However the BN crowd is rather subdued. The BN crowd is also standing right under the hot sun while the Pakatan people have shades to protect

22 http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21728-pkr-needs-to-mend-fences-in-selambau

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them”23. The author of this piece did nothing but report facts—but the facts are of the sort that frame a narrative, not convey a piece of news. The excerpt has the effect of evoking sympathy for the BN-sympathizers—“right under the hot sun,” the loaded use of “protect,” as if they are being victimized—and thereby loses its objective distance.

Similarly, Malaysiakini’s “A Tale of Two Crowds” (itself titled as if an excerpt from an epic poem) romanticizes an entire train of events between competing flocks of supporters:

The PKR-led contingent appeared to have a large number of supporters, bigger than the ones ranged on the field, coming in from the Sungai Rambai side in cavalier fashion, as if they were there just to see for themselves the unfolding events rather than being part of an organised show of strength24.

“In cavalier fashion?” Who exactly is writing this piece, and what kind of reaction do they want from the reader?

The Malaysian Insider is known for its more relaxed, more easily-accessible style, but it’s possible to maintain that style while also maintaining professional credibility. What is not acceptable is for the author’s own commentary to sneak its way into the reporting.

“Not surprisingly,” starts one article, “Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, the Pas candidate for Bukit Gantang, called the parliamentary by-election a “referendum” for both the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) alliance and its arch-rival the Barisan Nasional (BN)”25. Not surprisingly? For whom? The author may not be surprised, but a reader unfamiliar with the narrative of the election as it unfolds probably feels condescended to by this choice of tone. “Looking more like a wannabe rockstar,” begins another article, even more egregiously, “[candidate] Kamarul [Ramizu Idris] told reporters he had entered the high-octane fight because he ‘felt the call to correct the problems in society’”26. “Like a wannabe rockstar?” Really? Such a characterization marginalizes Kamarul before the reader has the opportunity to evaluate the candidate for him- or herself.

A comprehensive enumeration of this particular brand of violation is available in the Appendix, but the consequence of each is clear: the reader is unable to conduct a neutral, thorough, and objective analysis of the article’s subject matter, because the authors of these pieces co-opt the opportunity for that evaluation by inserting their own commentary.

23 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/101215 24 http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/10122125 “A Referendum? It Depends on Who You Ask,”

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21654-a-referendum-it-depends-on-who-you-ask

26 “Dark Horse Believes Spirit Will Carry the Day,” http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/malaysia/21663-dark-horse-believes-spirit-will-carry-the-day

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Real Signs for Hope

We stress that despite the criticisms leveled at certain segments of the online media in this report, there are an equal—perhaps greater—number of truly superlative pieces of writing, commentary, and analysis that set exemplary standards of professionalism for other journalists to follow. These articles differentiate between different styles and narrative intensions, support each one of their claims with quotes and facts, follow up on apparent incongruities, and succeed in presenting their subject clearly, fairly, and free from any ambiguity.

For reasons similar to why it is difficult to present examples of un-biased content-presentation, it is also difficult to lift specific excerpts from these excellently-penned pieces of reporting and hold them up to the light as shining examples of quality journalism. Success is more about the whole rather than the sum of its parts. Still, we have attempted to present in the Appendix a listing of every article we feel is particularly successful or excellent. Aspiring journalists should take these examples to heart.

The Way Forward

Despite the tremendous diversity of problematic tendencies and the obviously-ephemeral nature of any report released by a single organization that tries to critique, criticize, and improve upon an entire realm of discourse, CIJ has nevertheless formulated a set of recommendations that, we feel, could secure the status of the online media as a legitimate source of Free Expression in Malaysia:

1. Eliminate the streaming feeds from BERNAMA. We understand that the feeds may have originated from a desire to provide analysis of disparate issues, or from a lack of resources available to produce a sufficient volume of original content. But biased and unprofessional reporting does not constitute a valid ‘side’ which deserves to be contrasted with unbiased, professional reporting habits. The BERNAMA feed undermines tremendously the legitimate efforts of these two news outlets because it jeopardizes their credibility by its very presence. It should be eliminated.

2. Websites should maintain clear and rigid boundaries between different styles of content. When possible, writers should be allocated exclusively to one and only one of these styles, to prevent tendencies from one from overlapping with the next. Opinion pieces should be clearly marked and labeled, and full-disclosure notices should be present if and when authors may hold competing interests.

3. Journalists should undergo skills-training sessions dealing with proper fact-gathering technique, as well as the actual writing of copy. Emphasis should be placed on the regulations articulated in the Journalists’ Code of Ethics. Good, professional reporting should be viewed as a primary objective.

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4. If staff and financial demands allow, editors should have regular conversations with journalists to identify any recurring flaws in those journalists’ writing styles. These conversations should be constructive in nature and aimed at skill-building and overall professional improvement, not styled as a kind of mandatory performance review.

5. Perhaps most importantly, the frame of discourse must begin to shift from viewing the online media as an inherently ‘pro-Opposition’ space to that of its being, simply, an open space. It is vital to drive home the message that unbiased, professionally-produced content belongs to no political party, no grandly-stated agenda or ideology beyond the sheer reality of fundamental human rights. Everyone is born with the right to express him- or herself freely. Therefore the online media must not feel compelled to react to criticisms of opposition-sympathy by promoting what the Malaysian establishment has allowed to become the status quo over the last fifty years. Nor must it continually exist in opposition to the ‘mainstream’ print media. It must become its own space.

We at CIJ are optimistic about the opportunities for the online media in the coming years—but caution that, largely, its destiny is in its own hands. The time has come to no longer settle for being ‘a level above’ the mainstream discourse, but rather to aspire to the highest standards of the profession. The time has come to demonstrate to the Malaysian public that they can have—can enjoy right now—the kind of media that for years has been written off as impossible, hopeless, absurd.

The time has come for change.

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