IN his acclaimed work, On Heroes, Hero Worship and The Heroic in History, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote that “Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”

Indeed, it is.

Without the Fourth Estate, otherwise known as the media, we can scarcely hope to get close to the truth and reality of what is happening amongst us and around us, and what is being done to us, frequently in our name, the much-invoked “rakyat”.

By informing the public and sowing debate and discussion on the things that matter, the work of the media, no matter by design or coincidence, goes far towards holding the powers-that-be to account.

This can only be a good thing, but it does not simply pop out of thin air through the mere existence of the media.

There are at least a few conditions that are crucial for the work of the media to have the effect of being a check and balance against the wielders of social and economic power.

In particular, the media must be free, not beholden or obligated to any interest except the public interest.

In Malaysia, political parties have shares in some of the largest mainstream media outlets.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that such ownership translates into editorial control that is often to the detriment of the public interest.

In an effort to provide the media with greater editorial independence from such meddling, the government is mulling over plans to limit political party ownership to no more than 10%.

That is only half the story, though.

Besides being free from owner interference, the people who make up the media themselves – the editors and reporters – must live up to the ideals of a free press.

This is most critical in reporting the news, which should be an objective and impartial exercise.

Of equal if not greater importance is for the media to have the fullest possible access to information.

A free and independent media won’t be able to report on the things that matter if it doesn’t have access to the things that matter. It would be all dressed up but have nowhere to go. It would be impotent.

For society to benefit, a free press must go hand-in-hand with freedom of information.

A national Freedom of Information Act is currently in the works and while this move is welcomed, the “giant mad elephant” in the room, as Universiti Malaya law lecturer Azmi Sharom has put it, is the Official Secrets Act (OSA).

Under the OSA, an official secret is “any document specified in the schedule and any information and material relating thereto and includes any other official document, information and material as may be classified as ‘Top Secret’, ‘Secret’, ‘Confidential’ or ‘Restricted’, as the case may be, by a minister, the menteri besar or chief minister of a state or such public officer appointed under Section 2B”.

The schedule concerned covers “cabinet documents, records of decisions and deliberations including those of cabinet committees; state executive council documents, records of decisions and deliberations including those of state executive council committees; documents concerning national security, defence and international relations.”

It all sounds entirely reasonable, until you find out that things like toll concession agreements somehow fall under the schedule and are classified documents. People have been investigated under the OSA in the past for disclosing information in those agreements.

In short, you and the media can’t have access to anything and everything that a government classifies as an official secret.

With a little imagination and huge leaps of logic, probably any document could be classified as an official secret.

Such arguments notwithstanding, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said recently that the OSA is needed because “there are things we must keep secret… for example, if we tell everything we discussed in the cabinet, a lot of us will be hammered, you see”.

Fair enough, although that shouldn’t be the end of the story.

We don’t need to resort to killing a giant mad elephant or hammering a cabinet for the purposes at hand, because we have more civilised options at our disposal.

Since there are undoubtedly highly secret matters and materials of state which need to be kept for specific eyes only, a Freedom of Information Act can provide exclusions, narrowly defined to prevent executive over-reach, for such exceptional information.

The OSA can be amended to include provisions that allow the classification of a document as an official secret to be challenged in court, should a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act be rejected due to it being an official secret.

There are likely many other ways to skin this cat, but the most important thing is the outcome.

For our nation to progress, we need a free and potent press with free access to all the information to keep you in the know and keep authority in check. – October 4, 2018.

* @YourJournalist asks questions in the hope of getting some straight answers, and tries to tell it like what he thinks it is. Pro-freedom. Truth is power. Smoking kills.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.