22 August 2009
Rocky’s prognostication about a free press under 1Najib and 1Rosmah (Hah!) got a whacking from Haris of People’s Parliament who pointed to recent dampeners on the press as indicative of the 1NajMah Administration’s poor attitude towards the press in general.
But Rocky’s point, I think, is mainly that he is a True Believer, and that he has faith in the 1NajMah Administration and believes that they will repeal that odious piece of repressive legislation, the Printing Presses & Publications Act (® Abu Talib Othman & Mahathir Mohamad). «PDF file at AG’s Chambers»
In the darkest days of the repression, after Operation Lallang (® Rahim Noor & Friends), an ouster clause was added putting the home minister’s decisions beyond question in court. Our current information minister earned his PhD spelling out how executive power was grossly misused then. It is under that yoke we have trudged the long and winding road since.
I hope Rocky’s faith is not misplaced. But I am in some befuddlement about what he’s trying to say about changes in press management:
… if Dr Mahathir had entrusted his deputies to take care of the media, it wasn’t the case with Pak Lah, who left the running of the media entirely to a couple of individuals and the 4th Floor. During his first 100 days, Pak Lah had sacked the Group Editor-in-chief of the New Straits Times Press and replaced him with a close friend.
84 Jalan Tangsi: The Media Under Najib
What’s the difference, entrusting the media to one’s deputies, or to one’s trusted advisers? The deputies, as politicians, have their own followers, can be manipulated by others in the party, horse-trading can take place, and editors can still go running to Dr Who — who thrived on divide and rule, and still does — and tell tales. But a coterie of trusted advisers are an opaque in-group reporting directly to their boss and can’t be toyed with politically, thus causing frustration among political wheelers-and-dealers?
So it seems that Rocky’s criterion for justifying Umno’s political control of the press is whether some people (possibly including him) will have access to the top, and wheeling and dealing can be done. (He has not a word to say whether he thinks Umno’s ownership and control of the press is a good thing.)
To continue reading …
http://uppercaise.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/between-a-rock-and-a-free-place/
[The blogger ‘Uppercaise’ has been involved with English-language newspapers (ST/NST, The Star and briefly the Malay Mail) writing, editing and training since 1969].