Drama at Malaysian media scene

Barely 24 hours after the New Straits Times came under fire from the government for publishing a controversial cartoon, the daily managed to evade any actions by dishing out its own preemptive strike - an open and unreserved apology.

Only yesterday the daily, after receiving a show cause letter from the Malaysian government, said that it would fight for press freedom and argued that sometimes it hurts when the truth are said.

Many, including those in the government and former PM Tun Mahathir, have asked for action to be taken against NST.

Their offence: the publication of a cartoon that ridiculed the on going Prophet Muhammad cartoon debacle.

Some even said the daily might face a short two-week suspension. As it is the goverment has previously indefinitely suspended the Sarawak Tribune for publishing the offending prophet cartoons and issued a two-week suspension to GuangMing Daily for indirectly publishing the same.

At the same time, some others were skeptical of any actions against NST. Why? After all it is the official mouth piece of the government, it is owned by Umno, its editors are all political appointees and its former editor-in-chief and present editorial adviser Kalimullah Hassan has the ears of PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

But still, there were some inklings that some form of punishment will come NST's way and before that could happen, NST came out with its apology.

In it, the paper said it misjudged how people will react to the cartoon and that it was guilty of human error. It stressed that there were no caricature of the prophet at all in the cartoon.

And added:

Perhaps, in more ordinary circumstances, such a cartoon would not have received more than a passing mention.Yet, these are different times. The Muslim world was outraged by the blasphemy of the Danish and European newspapers.

When the Sarawak Tribune and Guang Ming Daily reproduced pictures depicting the caricature of the Prophet, the Government acted firmly and suspended both newspapers. Their editors and publishers were held accountable.

In the case of Wiley Miller’s cartoon in the NST, there was no caricature of Prophet Muhammad at all. NONE.

And NST threw a stink bomb at state broadcaster RTM for broadcasting a short clip of some people reading a newspaper with the offending prophet cartoons. The daily however was gracious in saying that it was not calling for the resignaion of Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin or his deputies, but added that it had passed a recording of the broadcast to the Internal Security Ministry show how even a government station could commit human error.

And what was the PM's reaction to all this - just a day after saying he will study the NST matter and see what sort of action may be taken against them?

He is quoted in the media as saying:

"Since they have made an open apology, with no conditions and admitted what they did had evoked mixed reactions, I don’t think there is a need for any action."

And on the RTM accusation, he said:

"I have heard about this, let me get the full information."

My immediate thought about this whole affair is that it is good that the government has decided not to strample on press freedom. And I don't think it will take any action against RTM either.

However, what upsets me is the degree of double standards in practice here.

If I remember correctly, the Sarawak Tribune too apologised immediately and took action in sacking its duty editor for publishing the offending cartoons. For that, the daily was suspended indifinitely. GuangMing Daily too apologised but still its night edition was suspended for two weeks.

Of course, in the NST case, the PM said the matter published was different. If that is the case, why such a din in the first place? Why the police reports, demonstrations and condemnations from top people? And more importantly why the show cause letter?

I can only speculate, and it is a frightening thought as well, that this only shows how freely the government is beginning to issue show cause letters to the media.

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