From Hong Kong Standard
26th January 2000

KUALA LUMPUR: Editors are arrested and sacked, newspaper permits are under threat of being pulled and a printer is charged with sedition.Malaysia's mainstream media are under fire, with flak flying at both the government-controlled broadsheet and the opposition tabloid.But one feisty daily, only two months old, is getting away with calling ruling party members ``morons'', scooping its competitors and annoying the opposition.

Malaysiakini, or Malaysia Now, has seized on a promise by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and a loophole in the law. It's gone to the Internet.

Dr Mahathir has vowed that he will not censor Malaysian content on the Internet, a promise he gave information technology firms looking to invest in his Multimedia Super Corridor, touted as the future Silicon Valley of Asia.

And publishing on the Internet doesn't require annual renewal of government permits, the bane of newspaper publishers in the country.``You don't need a licence, you don't need to raise that much capital, and you don't need to worry about circulation,'' said Steven Gan, editor of Malaysia Now, which boasts 20,000 to 30,000 hits a day since it went on line 20 November.

Malaysia Now kicked off just as Dr Mahathir dissolved parliament and called for a snap poll. It immediately raised eyebrows and the respect of media watchdogs by running bylines and taking on the establishment.

``Mahathir is a desperate man, but he's not going to attack the Internet because of his'' Multimedia Super Corridor, said Gan, a former editor at The Sun who left after a story by his investigative team about deaths in illegal immigrant camps was spiked.

Although the government has shut down cybercafes that were illegally promoting gambling via the Internet and arrested four people for spreading riot rumours via e-mail, it mostly has taken a hands-off attitude toward websites.

At Malaysia Now, a handful of reporters and editors huddle around newly-purchased PCs in their small office in a Kuala Lumpur suburb to put out the mix of hard news, editorials, features and fluff.

Gan insists Malaysia Now is not an opposition website, but a daily newspaper whose philosophy is freedom of the press and a voice to all sides. In fact, several stories have prompted opposition leaders to either deny or denounce what was on the website.

``We do a lot of reporting about the opposition, but that's by default because the opposition is much more accessible,'' Gan said. ``We want to promote the idea that the media can be independent. That concept is almost unheard of in Malaysia. You either have the New Straits Times _or Harakah,'' the popular tabloid put out by Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party, the opposition fundamentalist group.

When it comes to the government, it doesn't seem to matter much these days whether you work for the governing party New Straits Times or Harakah, its competitor.

Zulkifli Sulong, the editor of Harakah, was arrested earlier this month and charged with sedition for an article in the paper that criticised the government. Over at the New Straits Times, editor-in-chief A. Kadir Jasin was pushed out last week despite a decade of columns devoted to Dr Mahathir and his 18-year regime.

``Kadir Jasin is the latest casualty of the undemocratic media stranglehold of the prime minister,'' said opposition leader Lim Kit Siang.

Along with the arrest of Zulkifli, the printer of Harakah was charged with sedition and three other opposition leaders were arrested and face trial.

Malaysia Now reports these events in real-time, alongside the international wire services, but its true competition for readers comes from the local papers.

It's best scoop was to report that the Chinese-language newspaper, Sin Chew Jit Poh, published a photo during the election campaign in which the face of ousted deputy prime minister Anwar was digitally replaced with Dr Mahathir's current deputy for an accompanying story about party unity.

The doctored photo prompted the editor-in-chief to issue an apology, conceding it was ``a violation of a cardinal principle of journalism''.

Malaysia Now was also the first to report that two northeastern states had fallen to the opposition on the night of the 29 November election.The website has declined offers of help from Western foundations.Its main funding comes from a US$100,000 (HK$780,000) grant from the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, enough to keep it going until it can rely on advertisers and readers.