Triple by-election in April: Old media continues with BN propaganda, new media set higher standards

CIJ conducted a media monitoring of four dailies (Utusan Malaysia, The Star, New Straits Times and theSun) as well as three online news portals (The Malaysian Insider, Malaysiakini and The Nut Graph) on the coverage of the by-elections in Bukit Gantang, Bukit Selambau and Batang Ai. Read more for the findings of the monitoring project.

MEDIA MONITORING REPORT: BY-ELECTIONS APRIL 2009 IN BUKIT GANTANG, BUKIT SELAMBAU AND BATANG AI

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 for the print, while another set of analysis was done for three news websites in the English language – Malaysiakini.com, The Malaysian Insider and The Nut Graph. For the print, a total of 486 stories were monitored from the news sections and supported by some stories that appeared in the online edition of the newspapers. The studies were undertaken by Yip Wai Fong, CIJ’s communications officer and Zachary David Chambers Hill, Luce Scholar for 2008-2009 at CIJ.

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 looked 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. Where the online sites were concerned 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. But we observed that 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.

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.

Discussion
(Note: A discussion was held on 11 July 2009 to present the conclusions and to obtain feedback and suggestions)

1. Gaps in the research
Wai Fong explained in her presentation that one 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, CIJ 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.

Gayathry said as in the previous research, one of CIJ’s 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.

2. Other issues raised in the discussion were:

• The coverage of the 2004 by-elections, example of Merbok, the journalists managed to speak to the constituents who complained about the lack of development but by the time the story was published, it had been changed substantially.
• A question was asked about reports that were articles negative to the BN, and the answer was no. But we were told that for the compilation of statistics, it should be included in the results/tables etc.
• There was a discussion on how the online desks of the print media were operating and the extent to which they had more freedom. It was noted however, that this space is restricted as the threat of the Printing Presses and Publications Act is still real and would have an impact on both the print and online editions.
• On correcting the perception that the online media was pro-opposition, it was noted that it was not just politicians who accused the online media of political bias. Readers also came to the online site with pre-existing biases and expected the online news sites to support particular political parties.
• The group also acknowledged that one of the problems is the lack of quality writing that then leads to stories that are vague, meaningless etc. There is a need to step up training of writers and journalists.
• In terms of ethical reporting, one of the questions that editors can ask journalists or for a journalist to ask his or her source is “how do you know ….”. This will help improve the credibility of the stories.
• On the question of why some news sites streamed BERNAMA feeds, it was noted that the reasons were lack of resources as readers demanded for news fast, and also because online journalists still could not get the BN side of the story. CIJ shared that the quality of BERNAMA stories was low and badly written and this could jeopardise the credibility of the news site. The Nut Graph sometimes places these stories to expose the politicians or leaders and insert paragraphs to counter statements or claims made in the stories. In this regard, it was noted that one alternative to dependency on BERNAMA was content sharing with other media outlets.
• One point made about the readers is that many are not interested in critical stories and were drawn to sensational stories.
• Comments in the online sites are useful not only to encourage viewer opinion but also to engage readers and respond to some of the issues raised, particularly on professional and ethical practices.
• Suggestions made to CIJ were to look at how the government machinery handles information dissemination in the age of internet technology where people get their information from multiple sources; and for CIJ to conduct a campaign to hold newsrooms accountable to the Code of Ethics by making a public stand on their commitment.

CIJ’s plans
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.

*This activity was supported by a grant from the Foundation Open Society Institute