Penulisan ini diambil tanpa mengubah teks asal daripada buku cenderamata Malam Wartawan Malaysia 1995, halaman 56-58 bertajuk: The media’s multi-faceted role in nation-building, by Mazlan Nordin.
Much is expected of media practioners these days. To inform, entertain and evolve a sense of ourselves as a nation continue to be Malaysian media’s multi-faceted role. For a society that is not homogeneous, unlike that of Japan or Korea, the last part is crucial and is its social function.
Yet other responsibilities are placed within the context. Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim recently chided the media for its lacklustre attitude in promoting the culture of knowledge among the people. Quote: “There is a pressing need for the mass media to enhance the intellectual tradition and not adopt an anti-intellectual attitude. It can improve the people’s intellectual level if it becomes a platform for knowledge rather than concentrate on just sensational news”.
Expressed earlier by academics, writers and sosial activists in a symposium on the “Free and Civil Duties” was the role of journalists in creating a more caring society.
Came then another seminar on the need for the media to sensitise the public on the dimension of domestic violence – wife batering and child abuse – in order to seek solutions. This was then followed by a conference also organised by the Asian Institute For Development Communication (Aidcom) on what the media must do to combat the scourge of AIDS. In Hong Kong just a month ago, senior editors from several countries gathered to discuss issues of Press freedom. All this some 900 days before the colony returns to the bosom of its motherland.
In the US, the Johns Hopkins University Press published 12 specially commissioned essays on what was described as “two grand trends transforming state structures around the world: the transition to democracy and the movement towards more open, market-oriented economies”.
A Chinese professor of politics at Princeton University, Pei Minxin summarised the three routes taken: simultaneous democratisation and market-oriented reform directed by the old regime, the autocratic path with economic reform before democratisation and the democratic path before economic reform.
In Pei’s opinion, the transition placing capitalism before democracy produced spectacular economic results in East and Southeast Asia. Achieved were three key development goals: high growth rates, poverty reduction and declining socio-economic inequality.
Noted with regret by Pei was the support given by the US in pursuance of its geopolitical strategies during the Cold War to dictatorial regimes in South Korea and the Marcos Government in the Philippines. Meanwhile, the “regions economic superpower, Japan, demonstrated remarkable passivity in promoting democracy”.
Those were the days of geopolitics, but now the emphasis is on geoeconomics as mentioned in a recent conference organised by ISIS, Malaysia’s think-tank.
On the same tangent was last week seminar in Penang on “The Media’s Role in Asia’s New Market Economies, attended by a mix of academics and senior editors from Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, China, Veitnam, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore and Malaysia.
Country papers presented in the seminar opened by Yang di Pertua Negri Tun Dr Hamdan Sheikh Tahir mentioned, among other things, the following:
- Indonesia started the 1970s with around 70 million people or 60 per cent of the population in absolute poverty. By 1990, the number of poor had dropped to about 27 million or 15 per cent of the population. It is a powerful indicator of the success of Indonesia’s development strategy. The level of inequality in the distribution of income, personal and regional, is also relatively low. Against these favourable trends is concern over the emergence of relatively high concentration of ownership and market power in the modern business sector in the hands of large business groups or conglomerates and its implications for both the efficiency and equity of private sector growth. The operations of the top 200 groups were estimated in 1990 at the equivalent of one-third of gross domestic product of which about a third was accounted for by the top five. The Indonesian print media’s urban was should be coupled with expanded coverage of matters rural. Quote: “Information is a development infrastructure like roads and brigeds”.
- Singapore is attempting to invest in the media industries in among other places, Asia. The first step was taken with the broadcasting of an hour of news and documentaries via Palapa from Jan 1, 1994. The Singapore International Television satellite broadcast reaches an area from Darwin to Maldives to Shanghai. Competition is being introduced within the local market. The radio industry now has competition from two trade union-run stations and one army-run station. They are not major contenders but they are competition for listeners nevertheless. Singapore draws a distinction between useful information and cultural invasion. The Playboy channel which carries soft porn programmes would not be allowed. Censorship will always be placed in Singapore in some form. These is indeed highly vocal opposition from members of the public themselves on relaxation of censorship standards.
- The political upheaval in Bangkok in May 1992 with popular demand for an elected Prime Minister spilled out onto the streets and illustrated the limitations of censorship. The live television channels under the military or the Mass Communication Organisation of Thailand “broadcast popular resentment in a distorted manner”. Cable television was self-censored as well as some of the other television stations. The numerous radio stations mean-while urged people to stay indoors. But people found out that hundreds of thousands were out on the streets from reading a few newspapers, from their mobile phone, the facsimile as well as word of mouth. Those in power then realised that censorship alone could not keep the people down. Another English-language newspaper has been launched in Bangkok in addition to the Bangkok Pose and The Nation. An English language business newspaper, a joint venture between a Singapore-publishing group and Thai interests, will be published also in the Thai capital.
Most insistent on the need for Press freedom was Mochtar Lubis, director of the Press Foundation of Asia. “Without Press freedom, the Press could easily be subverted by the Government in power or by special vested interests in Government or in business… Market economies are also about people, both the producers and the consumers should not mean the free exploitation of a nation’s resources and markets by foreign capital and companies by the economically, politically and technologically stronger member nations of Apec”.
A paper presented by Professor Datuk Nik Abdul Rashid Nik Abdul Majid, former director of Institut Teknologi Mara in a Kuala Lumpur seminar last May enumerated what he said are the 101 roles of the Malaysian media. They include social engineer, agent of change, power broker, guardian against language pollution, crusader of justice and watch-dog.
In effect, the journalist is asked to become his brother’s keeper. All of which brings to mind the reminder once given by Hassanein Heikal, the most famous editor of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram when he coined a new Arab phrase and described journalism as the “profession of looking-for-trouble”. It explains why many candidates apply.
