“JOURNALISM is printing what someone else does not want printing; everything else is public relations.” George Orwell indeed said it well.

As caricaturistic as the quote might be, it captures the importance of having access to information that is of interest to the masses, and the kind of contentious relationship that journalists have with the powerful.

As recently as a week ago, one of the Philippines’ most prominent journalists, Maria Ressa, and her colleague were found guilty by a Manila court of “cyber libel” over an article implicating a businessman in human trafficking and drug smuggling. The report was published in 2012, four months before the country’s cybercrime law was enacted. The duo now face a jail term of up to six years, and for Ressa, about 100 if she is convicted of seven other criminal charges.

Our own Federal Court, meanwhile, has allowed contempt proceedings initiated by Attorney-General Idris Harun against Malaysiakini and its editor-in-chief, Steven Gan, over readers’ comments on the judiciary. Instantly, the news portal’s comment section underneath reports on the proceedings was disabled, effectively muting readers’ voice.

For journalists, the danger is everywhere. Investigations into crimes involving powerful people are literally a matter of life and death. According to Reporters Without Borders, there were 49 journalists killed last year, with 63% of them having been targeted. Another 389 were detained for simply doing their job, and the number looks to be rising.

These frontliners have been paying with their freedom – and lives. Clearly, shedding light on governments’ involvement in corruption and organised crime is a risky business. And, the protection given to journalists is scarce.

Our media is not immune from crackdowns and interference by the government. Malaysians, having experienced first-hand “the worst form of kleptocracy in history”, need no reminder of the significance of a free press, or the consequences of not having one.

The Wall Street Journal, on July 2, 2015, became the first to directly link the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal to then prime minister Najib Razak. In about two weeks, the Sarawak Report portal was blocked by Putrajaya and an arrest warrant issued for its editor, Clare Rewcastle-Brown. Subsequently, other outlets, such as Medium.com, Asia Sentinel and The Malaysian Insider, were blocked for publishing follow-up reports and their journalists, too, were investigated.

The global reaction to news on the 1MDB fraud, however, was of such a scale that the authorities in multiple countries were compelled to act, including Malaysia. The free flow of information eventually led to the downfall of the Barisan Nasional regime in 2018, a historic event in the country’s politics.

But the media rarely emerges the winner in its efforts to hold governments accountable. Garry Rodan, author of Transparency and Authoritarian Rule in Southeast Asia – Singapore and Malaysia, wrote that the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) was used throughout the 1960s and 1970s “to instil caution and apprehension on the part of journalists” (p. 23), citing as examples the detention of New Straits Times editorial adviser Abdul Samad Ismail and Berita Harian news editor Samani Amin in 1976.

He also wrote: “This was the year in which the ISA and Sedition Act were deployed in a crackdown known as Operasi Lalang, or Operation Lalang, which not only involved mass detentions, but also the closure of three major domestic newspapers – The Star, Sin Chew Jit Poh and Watan – for alleged subversion by reporting on racial aspects of the political conflict between two government parties.” In fact, Malaysia became the first Commonwealth country to jail a journalist, namely Murray Hiebert, for contempt in 1999 (p.149).

By the time Dr Mahathir Mohamad and Anwar Ibrahim parted ways in 1997, Malaysian media outlets had been conditioned and restrained to the point that they “came to assume a role in attacking the international press” (p.147). Or to borrow Orwell’s words, providing the service of “public relations” to the government.

The exposure of the 1MDB scandal has benefited the country and its people greatly. For one, the disclosure of evidence of wrongdoings allowed the authorities in various countries to open investigations and take action according to their laws, such as seizing suspect funds and bank accounts, closing Switzerland’s BSI Bank in Singapore, Bank Negara Malaysia taking punitive measures against the disgraced state investor, issuing of an arrest warrant for fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, and charging Najib with a slew of corruption offences and putting him in the dock. All these work towards delivering justice, and the due process has enabled Malaysia to recover more than RM2.6 billion.

In addition, the regime change two years ago made possible a loosening of the stranglehold on publications in the country. The green light was given for the sale of books like Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood and the World by Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, and Rewcastle-Brown’s The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Expose, providing every citizen with the opportunity to be educated on and informed about corruption.

Most importantly, the 1MDB episode will forever be a lesson to both the government and people that accountability is the foundation of public trust and legitimate rule – a foundation that cannot exist without an independent press.

We should celebrate Malaysia’s rise in the Press Freedom Index over the last two years, placing the country above its neighbours, but let’s not assume that this “change” is sustainable or substantial. With the Sedition Act 1948, Official Secrets Act 1972, Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, and Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 among the laws still looming over journalists, our media can never be truly free.

“We were under trial today. Yes. The verdict came out today,” said a tired Ressa in a TV interview. “But the justice system was also under trial today.”

The news veteran is known for her strength and defiance, but her concern for herself was palpable in her voice and body language. A sentence of 100 years is more than enough to instil caution and apprehension in anyone.

Information – or disinformation, for that matter – is power. As consumers, it serves us well to always be aware of the difference between the information disseminated by a state-controlled media outlet and an independent one, and critical of the how and why. While one “enslaves”, the other “liberates”. One leads to caution and apprehension; the other, to printing without fear or favour.

And, we owe it to journalists on the front line who are trying to effect that change. – June 22, 2020.

* Chan Yit Fei is a founding member of Agora Society. He is a cellist and educator by profession, and a biotechnologist by training. He writes to learn and to think, and most importantly, to force himself to finish reading books that would otherwise not see much of the light of day.

* 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.