Time to free up the press

Nurul Izzah will press on for the abolishment of the PPPA

American media got a big fillip when Donald Trump unexpectedly got elected as president of the United States. This black swan event has resulted in some of the best journalism the world has ever seen with publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post coming up with major scoops seemingly almost every day. TV news is also blooming with CNN and MSNBC getting better ratings than ever before with its wall-to-wall coverage of the political situation in the country.

BN's stunning defeat in GE14 is very much a black swan event too. Will it also spark a renaissance in Malaysian journalism?

Malaysiakini's prominence will continue to grow. There was a time when it was in a neck-to-neck race with The Malaysian Insider for political coverage. Then MI got bought over by The Edge and eventually had to shut down, apparently because it was bleeding too much red ink. That left Mkini on its own as the main source of credible political news. There are a few other online news portals but none with the credibility and gravitas of Mkini.

Will MI make a comeback in some new form now that BN has been toppled? Maybe. If it does, we are all better for it. Competition is always a good thing. Keeps everyone on their toes.

The mainstream print media has always been hampered by the fact that it was either owned by government political parties or businessmen with close ties to the government. This hampered its ability to report as independently as Mkini when it came to political matters.

Will this change now that there has been a regime change? That depends on whether there will be a change of ownership in those papers. As long as a paper is owned by a political party or by businessmen with close ties to a political party, you can't realistically expect it to be critical of that party.

I, for one, think it's actually a good idea to enact a law that forbids political parties to own national newspapers, whether directly or through proxies. Either that or you open it all up for anyone to publish their own newspaper. No need to get KDN licence. And abolish the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA). Then leave it to market forces to determine whether that paper survives or not. The credible ones will survive and thrive.

Will Pakatan do away with the PPPA? After all, it has long been the victim of unfair press coverage. Somehow I feel Dr M's instincts would be to want to preserve it but the other leaders in the coalition should press him on it. Nurul Izzah has already indicated she will press on with the abolishment of the dreaded PPPA.