By Jasmin Jafrizul
GOMBAK, 30 October 2023: Following the trend of live streaming and fake news, a panel of esteemed speakers took their time to criticise and offer their insights on the challenges and opportunities of the Malaysian media in the second programme of the talk series INSIGHTS organised by IIUM’s Communication and Media Centre (COMET), on 26 October 2023.
The talk that was broadcasted live on YouTube by IIUM TV was entitled, “Trust, Truth, and Transparency: The Media’s Responsibility in Malaysia”. It involved former CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Bernama and Advisor of the National Press Club of Malaysia, Datuk Yong Soo Heong; author of “Pilihanraya Demokrasi Malaysia”, G. Manimaran; TV and Podcast host of Astro Awani and Tiber, Ibrahim Sani; and News Editor of news portal, malaysiakini, Zikri Kamaruzzaman. The moderator was Assoc. Prof. Dr. Shafizan Mohamed, the Coordinator of COMET and lecturer of the Department of Communication at AHAS KIRKHS, IIUM.
Trust is what the listeners perceive it to be. After two rounds of discussions by the panelists, there was the agreement that everyone has a different set of values, a different set of opinions and everyone has a bias. There should be the understanding that every truth is different in people’s mind and although the reality is viewed the same by the audiences but truth will only be perceived the way they want to see it.
The younger generation or GenZs are incredible in getting news, Ibrahim stated that “Kids are switching between applications involving three applications in one minute that means 20 seconds per application. They would have an idea of the news story. But if you ask about the details they wouldn’t know.” The rate of news consumed by the younger generation is much faster compared to previous generations.
There is the need to shift the way news is being covered and the way to gain trust and credibility from the public is through commentaries, as people want to make sense of the facts being presented to them. For example Mr Ibrahim stated, “in the budget for this year, it was announced that SST will be increasing from 6 percent to 8 percent, people know this yet people would want to know how this would impact them. So in a podcast everyone would say one thing and they won’t be conclusive, and this is attractive to listeners.”
The future of independent media that is transparent and trustworthy can be achieved. There is only one thing that has changed after all these years which is the method of approaching the people on social media. Notably the media need to study how people consume media in thirty seconds, everyone must be more engaging to attract readers or viewers.
The media’s problem (or the reality) is that they are businesses in profitability as they have to keep afloat, but at the same time there is the need to run news at the benefit of citizens and by having public interest at heart without only thinking of profitability in order to gain the trust of the people. The media is now a place where everything is visible to the whole world and in the current situation where everything is at our fingertips, gaining consent first is a crucial aspect before publishing news. ***
they will fly away,
however,
if you spend your time building a beautiful garden
the butterflies will come to you
and if they don't,
at least you have a garden to be happy with.
- Katherine Young
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