Boon Hooi who works with BBC in Malaysia has compiled a fascinating list of writers who have allegedly been blacklisted from writing in Malaysian publications. I had no idea that there were so many people blacklisted. (Via Screenshots)
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This only goes to show that the claim that there is press freedom is nothing but some form of window dressing here and there. You will note that all those blacklisted are Chinese writers, much as I hate to say this.
the so-called blacklist isn’t formally drawn up, just a long-standing and ever-changing collection of names of those in the chinese community that provide the lifeblood of the chinese-language press’ opinion pages – which have long been more lively and better reading than that found in english and malay newspapers. The only reason such a ‘blacklist’ has become controversial recently is because it adds to the conspiracy theories over how the new Sin Chew owner, that long disliked timber tycoon arriviste, is colluding with MCA to clamp down on ‘dissent’. And how there’s actually a battle of timber-media tycoons going on in the chinese language media world, eg, sin chew vs oriental daily etc etc. So it’s not about race/ethnicity as such (‘… chinese writers’) but about controlling the message of the day. ’twas ever thus in the (licensed) m’sian media
Poondek: Very interesting account. Where can one get more information about the state of the power plays in the Chinese-language media in Malaysia?
Has to be in English though as my writtend Mandarin sucks.
if you send me your email address which can take a 3mb file, i can send you something from a book about the malaysian media