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To commemorate World Press Freedom Day, the Centre for Independent Journalism released a report on the economic rights of journalists in Malaysia, arguing that the challenges facing journalism today are not just political or legal, but increasingly economic. How does this link to press freedom and democratic health? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Premesh Chandran, Deputy Chairperson of the Malaysian Media Council, and Co-Founder of the news site, Malaysiakini.
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00:10Hi, welcome back to Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris. Let's continue our discussion about a new
00:15report by the Centre for Independent Journalism, which shines a light on the economic realities
00:21facing media workers in Malaysia. Can a media industry under economic strain continue to
00:27deliver independent and public interest journalism. Joining me on the line to discuss this further is
00:33Premish Chandran, who is Deputy Chairperson of the Malaysian Media Council and co-founder of the
00:39news site Malaysia Kini. Prem, good to have you on the show again. So the CIJ report, it frames
00:47journalists' economic security as a press freedom issue. I'm wondering, Prem, whether you agree with
00:54this framing? Well, it's a good question, you know, where does the economic rights of journalists
00:59lie in this kind of press freedom environment? I like to think of it as, you know, on one hand,
01:06regulation being kind of like the soil, the fertile soil on which journalism grows. So I think regulation
01:13is, you know, if you don't have good regulations, it's hard to have, you know, freedom of expression,
01:18independent media and, you know, a strong media playing a role. And the journalists and economic
01:24rights of journalists are, you know, essentially the farmer, you know, who's working the soil, right?
01:28So you do need the healthy soil, but at the same time, you need healthy farmers, you know, and they
01:34need to get a good return on their living in terms of, you know, working the soil and producing the
01:40fruits,
01:40you know, in terms of the stories and the news that we get. So I think they're half right that
01:45the economic
01:46rights of the journalists are important, but so this is very important to have a regulatory framework
01:52that supports press freedom. Okay, so I'll come back to the regulatory framework in a bit,
01:59but I want to interrogate further the current economic reality of the Malaysian media landscape.
02:06From your vantage point, Prim, how economically fragile, how financially fragile is Malaysia's media industry?
02:15Well, you know, ever since the internet has grown, on one hand, it's got more
02:20freer because the government has decided not to license the internet. So sites like Malaysia
02:25Kinney, other online sites have grown in this sort of, you know, more regulatory environment,
02:29which is more free. But at the same time, the media industry has become more constrained
02:33because especially online, a lot of advertising actually goes into the pockets of the big tech companies,
02:39the Googles, the Facebooks of the world. So the same amount of money which used to go into print and
02:44broadcast is not coming to online journalism. So it's kind of, you know, paradoxical. It's more
02:49freer, but at the same time, more fragile. Okay. So the advances in social media and
02:59the availability of news online for free without a paywall has really disrupted the industry.
03:07How you've been in the Malaysia Kinney newsroom. We're not specific to Malaysia Kinney, but I'm
03:13just wondering, newsrooms in general are very expensive to run. And quality journalism requires
03:20investment and, of course, money. So how sustainable is that? Is quality journalism today becoming
03:27economically unsustainable? Do we, the public, underestimate how expensive quality journalism is?
03:38Yeah, I think that's very true. I think they, because they see a lot of advertising on news
03:42sites, they think we're kind of minting money. But actually those ads, most of it, like I said, goes to
03:47another party, not the news sites. So it is becoming pretty fragile and difficult. And the economics of the day
03:54does not sustain or support long-term investigative journalism. So that the workforce is shrinking and
04:01each journalist is asked to do more within limited time. And that puts severe constraints on the
04:05quality of the stories, the amount of time we have to devote to a story. And also because it's less
04:11upward trajectory, we tend to lose a lot of the senior journalists. So you get more young people coming in,
04:17but they don't stay. As soon as their family, their kids,
04:21their financial priorities are challenging and they move on. So a lot of people enter journalism
04:26with a passion, especially at a young age, but find it hard to sustain in journalism throughout their
04:32careers. How expensive is it really? Maybe you can give us a ballpark, maybe not specifics, but
04:40there is a decision that's made in newsrooms whether or not to invest in investigative pieces. And
04:48while investigative journalism is celebrated, sometimes we say, oh, why don't we see more of this?
04:52I think people rarely think about it in economic terms. And give us some insight into this, Prim.
05:01Well, a small newsroom can be anything like 20 or 30 people. A medium-sized, maybe 100. A large news
05:07organisations, 300 to 500. You know, the global ones like New York Times and Guardians, you know,
05:125,000, 10,000, right? So there's a whole scale. You can even do a one-person show, right? Even
05:16one
05:17person can, you know, can produce content, etc. So there's a great variety. But typically, you're
05:22looking at an operation of between 10 to 20 million a year. So you're looking at an income, you know,
05:27you need at least, you know, 1-2 million a month of income. And that's hard to drive purely on
05:34advertising. It's not just, you know, money going on to the big tech companies. For now, for example,
05:39a lot of brands have switched to using influencers to market their product. Some, you know,
05:45good-looking person appears on your TikTok, you know, selling a particular product. And there's
05:51zero journalism in that. And they're capturing all that value from advertising. It previously used to
05:58be that, you know, that some money goes to our brand content, somewhere in the brands, but a lot
06:04of money would then go into the journalism. But now all that value is being captured
06:08in platforms that don't reflect, you know, strong journalistic values and integrity.
06:14Yeah. And so what happens to journalism when newsrooms are constrained, when newsroom resources
06:21are cut too deeply?
06:23Well, they suffer, you know, you get, you know, it gets, there are more mistakes, things are rushed,
06:30things are less in-depth, less informative. You tend to have a bias towards quick, you know, quick stories,
06:36just like how we have a bias for fast food. You know, everything wants to be quick and easy and
06:40quick, right? You know, you have lots of salt in the food, but it may not be nutritious to you.
06:45So that's another analogy. You can have a lot of news out there, but not all news
06:49really is nutritious and healthy for the person consuming that news.
06:53Yeah. And your experience, Prim, are audiences willing to pay for quality journalism? I'm quite
07:02curious to know what determines that willingness, you think?
07:06Well, that's what Malaysia Kini was banking on. So we launched our subscription way back in 2002,
07:12some three years. So we found very quickly after we launched in 1999, that advertisers were very
07:18hesitant to put money behind provocative, you know, independent investigative journalism because those
07:24kind of stirred an issue. So, but we were banking on subscribers to pay and support a good journalism.
07:31And that really happened for a good 10, 15 years. Our subscriptions have grown. But the older generation
07:37are still paying for subscriptions, but the younger generation are not. And it's not so much that they
07:43don't want to invest in good content. There's so much of free content out there. So they're asking
07:49themselves, you know, why should I pay for something if it's coming to me on my WhatsApp or my TikTok?
07:54So it's a challenge. I understand it, you know, both from the publisher's point of view, but also the
07:59consumer point of view, you know, why would I want to pay for something which I can get for free?
08:03So that's a challenge that we have to show what's the real value in a subscription. And it's a support
08:09for independent media. So we always encourage our readers to subscribe and support whether it's
08:13Malaysia Kini or any other media, but it's definitely a challenge.
08:18I think for full transparency, I'm a paying subscriber to Malaysia Kini. I also wanted to ask you to put
08:27your Malaysia Media Council hat on, Prim, and talk to us a little bit about the role of MMC. You
08:34mentioned
08:34a bit earlier that the practitioners are farmers, essentially, and just keep them healthy is one
08:39thing. But the regulatory framework, ensuring that the ground is conducive for good journalism is also
08:46equally important, or if not more important. So talk to me about the Malaysia Media Council's role
08:52in ensuring a healthy regulatory framework for the industry.
08:58Sure. I think, you know, for past governments, media has always been something which they wanted to
09:04control to censor. For example, the Printing Presses Act was under the whole ministry. So it became
09:09like it's more of a security issue, rather than a service to society. So we're kind of moving to the
09:16idea of having the Malaysian Media Council is to move from a heavily censored and regulated industry
09:21towards one that he promotes press freedom. So the current government, the Minister of Communication, YB
09:28Fahmi, the Prime Minister have been strong advocates for this transition. And yet it's still
09:33in a bit of limbo. We kind of created the Malaysia Media Council, but we haven't really unwound the
09:39previous laws that exist that regulate and could censor the media. So we're kind of moving forward,
09:45but it's a bit of a journey. So the Media Council, the idea is now to sort of trigger law
09:51reform and move
09:52away from the previous law so that the media can self-regulate through a professional code of conduct,
09:59towards the grievance mechanism, so that the Media Council is made up of the media companies, the
10:05media practitioners, journalists, editors, as well as civil society. We can come together and set the
10:11rules of which media should operate. And just zooming out, when you look at the landscape today,
10:19what are you most concerned about? There's lots of things to be optimistic about. I see a lot of change
10:25in
10:25the industry. But as you know, looking back at all the things that we've discussed today with the
10:31changes in technology and the economic insecurity of the industry, what concerns you the most, Prem?
10:40Well, on one hand, we don't want to go backwards. The proposals coming out of the whole ministry to
10:45introduce licensing for all media. So we don't really want to go back in that direction. That's the one
10:50thing. But the forward area we need to claim is around freedom of information. At the moment,
10:56we have the Official Secrets Act. So a lot of information that we believe should be in the public
11:02sphere is actually deemed secret. And it's very difficult for citizens to be informed and have a
11:08good discussion around policy if there's no freedom of information. So we're finding hard to move forward in
11:15that area to reduce the Official Secrets Act and replace it with the Freedom of Information Act. At the
11:20same time, we don't want to go backwards and have more and more licensing for media.
11:26Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. Premis Chandran there,
11:30Deputy Chairperson of the Malaysian Media Council and co-founder of Malaysia Kini,
11:34wrapping up this episode of Consider This. I'm Melissa Idris, signing off for the evening.
11:39Thank you so much for watching and good night.
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