Journalism in Malaysia

I have tonnes of friends, and some of them are worthy Malaysian journalists. However, this morning, I woke up with a message on my WhatsApp messenger informing me that my name and the comment I made on a viral video was quoted on The Star Malaysia news. A moment of fame, indeed, but I don't rejoice in it at all, because my consent was not asked. In fact, I was totally disgusted and horrified. You might think I made a big deal over a small matter, but looking at how degrading the morality of my own homeland is right now, it is time that we make a difference by being logical and objective about it. Protecting and defending what is wrong is so outdated and we should adapt a more transparent and radical attitude if we truly want to see change and transformation in the country. And oh, whining about those "issues" on Facebook statuses doesn't help much if we remain as the complaining citizens who do nothing else but to complain day and night.

Source: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--o1VmQnph--/17ks7uyvm3198jpg.jpg

I can be open about what I think and I stand to be corrected if I am wrong, but I do not appreciate being named in news article if it weren't something worth mentioning, though I have nothing to hide, really. I find the experience of unprofessional journalist who didn't even bother to request for consent to quote my comment and my name in a news article prepared for the public utterly horrifying. I wrote to the Chief Editor and all other editors whose emails I could get hold of in order to raise the alert in that company of such non-existence consent/permission request. Chances are, they signed it off for publication because they thought their journalist in question had asked for consent, or worse still, they are not aware that asking for consent is logical and people of Malaysia have rights to remain anonymous in this kind of news.

I'm utterly disgraced and disappointed with the ethics of some journalists in Malaysia at the moment. Or at least, on this particular newspaper and its attitude on the rights of those whom they quoted. My opinions about this company will remain critical for a while, until I see improvement on their news.

Here's a copy of the email I sent to the Chief Editor of The Star Newspapers:

Dear Chief Editor and editors of The Star Malaysia, 

          With regards to the subject mentioned, I would like to request for official apologies and sound action taken from your company for using a previous comment I made on Facebook about this video without having your journalist, L. Suganya, asking my consent to use my comment prior to publishing the article. This is utterly unethical for a journalist and a national news channel who would (hopefully) like to report true public opinion on a piece of national news to not have the policy of first requesting for consent from whom she/he is quoting from. Besides unethical, it is very unprofessional. To my utter surprise and horror, it was not myself who found out about this as I am not residing in Malaysia at the moment but I was informed by a friend of mine that my name was mentioned in a news article of The Star.

          I feel insecure to freely comment on anything from now on if there is such unethical and unprofessional people working in this line of profession. Asking for consent from anyone wouldn't take her/him more than a minute, since she/he would have the link to the profile page of another person. Consent matters because we have rights to remain anonymous in this kind of article. Unless your company thinks that any Malaysian who voiced their opinion doesn't have right to decide whether or not they want to be in the news. I strongly suggest that you'd consider revamping your idea of what the rights of the public is, if your company does have such idea about us. The morality of your newspaper is subjected to my critical view of how unprofessional can your journalists be when it comes to personal consent on quoting people, and the images you used for your report, etc.

          I do not want to lose hope in my own country's national paper, but with these kind of news published, I can't help but to wonder aloud to you, dear Chief Editor. I do hope such thing do not repeat itself again, giving a bad name to Malaysian press in the international community. You probably already know that Malaysian press doesn't have a very good name in the international community anyway.

          I do hope that wise action and proper scrutiny of your news articles are done prior to publishing any form of news.

          All the best. 

          Thank you for your attention.