Malaysians rely on the mainstream media for information on corruption but they are concerned with biased reporting on the issue, according to the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ)-Merdeka Centre survey on corruption and the media.
According to Ibrahim Suffian, director of the Merdeka Centre, while the respondents agreed that the media was the key to eradicate corruption in government and to improve transparency, only one third of the respondents thought that it was playing an effective role. Furthermore, most Malaysians perceive that media reporting on corruption was in favor of the ruling Barisan Nasional party. The other institution that the respondents thought the media was in favor of was the police.
Speaking at a press conference on 16 November 2009 to launch the results of the survey, Ibrahim added that half of the respondents felt that the institutions that are supposed to fight corruption are not effective.
CIJ Executive Director Gayathry Venkiteswaran said if the government wanted to be perceived as serious in combating corruption, then the media must be allowed to play a more active role than it is now.
In the survey, more than 40 percent of the respondents identified the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal as among the widely reported incident of corruption. Among those who pointed out various cases, 51 percent were dissatisfied with the media reporting. The coverage of money politics and elections by the media were said to be the least satisfactory.
"The perception of bias is probably due to the lack of diversity of sources in corruption coverage, even though the survey and our own monitoring point out that the mainstream media do routinely report on corruption. The PKFZ scandal is quite illustrative of the media because the reporting is largely based on government-sanctioned information," Gayathry said.
On the other hand, the survey also revealed that a segment of the public is aware that corruption is a problem. However, the respondents claim that they are not adequately informed about corrupt acts. Almost 55 percent were not able to name a corruption case that was widely reported by the media, while 16 percent were not aware of whether grand corruption was serious in Malaysia. The public was also split as to whether corruption affected their personal life.
"A bolder media is needed to serve the interest of those with a lower level of awareness of corruption as well as those who were very concerned about it. The media can do so by producing more investigative journalism and critical pieces that serve to inform the public on the threats of corruption to society," Gayathry said.
Close to 1,300 people aged 20 and above were interviewed via telephone from 16 September to 12 October 2009. In addition, two focus groups were conducted among twenty participants living in Klang Valley. This is the second public survey on media conducted by Merdeka Centre on behalf of CIJ since 2008 and supported with grants from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF).
