Malaysiakini is celebrating its 10th year anniversary on Saturday, Nov 28 with a gala dinner at the Sime Darby Convention Centre in Bukit Kiara.
Malaysiakini.com （http://www.malaysiakini.com）
(1)How Malaysiakini challenges authoritarianism, 11 November 2009
by Janet Steele
"We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber-war... It was a serious misjudgment. We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important."
- Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, 2008
On March 8, 2008, the BN ruling coalition suffered a stunning upset, losing its two-thirds majority in Parliament along with five of peninsular Malaysia's 11 states.
With opposition parties falling only 30 seats short of winning a majority in Parliament - and widespread rumours of parliamentarians in Sabah and Sarawak bolting BN to join a coalition led by opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim - this was a loss of unprecedented proportions.
Journalists, commentators, and parliamentarians themselves credited - or blamed - the Internet. With five well-known bloggers elected to Parliament, the election of 2008 seemed to spell an unambiguous victory for the power of online media.
As Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan later said, if the Gulf War put CNN on the map, the election of 2008 did the same for Malaysia's only independent news portal.
On election night, with key states falling to the opposition and BN's customary super-majority in question, state television was uncharacteristically silent. But Malaysiakini was posting live updates, many of them sent in by recently-trained volunteers. Finally, at about 1am, the Election Commission announced that the government had won a simple majority.
Gan recalls that at about the same time Umno, the backbone of the ruling coalition, called an emergency meeting. The meeting broke up at about two in the morning, and there was a short press conference in which Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi stated that the ruling coalition still had a very strong majority.
As he was leaving and journalists continued to press him, he said why ask more questions? "We have lost, we have lost."
This became Malaysiakini's final headline for the night. They posted it in red.
Although some researchers have rejected the conventional wisdom that the Internet is an inherently democratising force, there is still widespread popular support for the notion that the Internet is an automatic threat to authoritarian regimes.
The government of Abdullah certainly thought so. In March 2007, the Internal Security Ministry issued a circular to newspapers warning them not to quote and publish "anti-government articles" from online news portals and blogs.
One week later, the Information Ministry issued a similar warning. With the government deliberately confusing Malaysia's approximately 20,000 bloggers with the online news service Malaysiakini, it is perhaps not surprising that many people would consider the two to be the same thing.
In a country where the proper role of news media is seen as reporting "good news about government leaders [and] cooperation between races, while promoting a single national identity", the government was clearly trying to discredit Malaysia's fledging independent news organisation.
However Malaysiakini is anything but "just another blog". What makes Malaysiakini unique is not only its willingness to report on political news that would not otherwise be accessible, but also the high standards of journalism that it upholds.
Malaysiakini was launched in November 1999, less than one year after the arrest of former deputy prime minister and leading opposition figure Anwar. The news portal was the creation of Gan and Premesh Chandran, two young journalists who got their start in print journalism at the The Sun.
Believing that political control had corrupted the values of good journalism in the mainstream media, their plan was to bring independent news, investigative reporting, and in-depth analysis to the Internet.
Launched in November 1999
Gan and Chandran timed the launch of Malaysiakini to coincide with the country's 1999 general election, and almost immediately gained notoriety by exposing that a Chinese-language newspaper had digitally manipulated a group photo of ruling party politicians to remove an image of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.
In a country where all publications are licensed, and journalists must work under the restrictions of the Internal Security Act, Sedition Act, and Official Secrets Act, Malaysian journalists are highly constrained by the law. Yet in Malaysia there is an unlikely loophole for online news organisations and bloggers.
In a 1997 speech in California, where he was courting overseas investment for high-tech industries, then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad pledged a no-censorship policy for the Internet. Although online journalists and bloggers are subject to harsh defamation laws regulating content, they need not fear losing a license to publish.
At a time when mainstream media had lost credibility for their pro-government slant, Malaysiakini gained immediate attention and international accolades for its independent reporting. As Anwar said in a 2007 interview, "Malaysiakini has independence, credibility. It's the only avenue we have; the other media have an instruction to block us out."
Malaysiakini has received a significant amount of scholarly attention since it was established a decade ago. Magazine and newspaper articles have also pointed to its independence, gutsiness, and willingness to "[tell] it like it is without having to resort to coded messages".
But to date, no one has closely examined how Malaysiakini actually functions as a news organisation. For example, how do journalists at Malaysiakini conceive of "independent journalism", and how is this understanding related to broader questions of democracy and social change?
This lengthy article focuses on how Malaysiakini uses the ideology of journalistic professionalism not only to challenge the status quo, but also to create a "pocket" of resistance to authoritarianism in Malaysia.
Drawing on first-hand observation of newsroom practices, close reading of the website, and extensive interviews with editors and reporters, I argue that it is the norms and values of independent journalism rather than the technology of the Internet per se that make Malaysiakini so threatening to government authorities.
Unlike previous research that either traces the history of Malaysiakini within the context of the political movement known as reformasi, or describes it as an example of cyber-activism, this article takes an ethnographic approach and analyses the specific newsroom practices that Malaysiakini uses to challenge authoritarianism, as well as the values that underlie these practices.
I argue that Malaysiakini uses the norms of good journalism - covering both sides, providing documentary evidence, and giving voice to the voiceless - to legitimise alternative views of events, thus challenging the authoritarianism of the BN.
I conclude by suggesting that in creating a space where citizens are free to express their opinions, Malaysiakini deliberately promotes a blueprint for democratic civic discourse in Malaysia.
・JANET STEELE is an associate professor of Journalism at the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University. Her most recent book 'Wars Within' focuses on Tempo magazine and its relationship to the politics and culture of New Order Indonesia. She is a frequent visitor to Southeast Asia, and writes a weekly newspaper column called 'Email dari Amerika' for Surya daily in Surabaya, East Java.
(2)'Our agenda is press freedom', 12 November 2009
by Janet Steele
Author Janet Steele, who spent weeks in Malaysiakini office in Bangsar Utama last year, finds out what makes journalists in this online daily tick. This is her second of a five-part series.
Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan was born in 1962 in Ketari, a small new village near Bentong in Pahang. The oldest of three children, his father was a bus conductor, and a poor immigrant from the Fujian province of China. His mother was a primary Chinese school teacher from a relatively better-off Cantonese family in town, about 2km from the new village.
Gan recalls his father as being "quite dictatorial" when he was young, and at age 14 he ran away from home, ending up living on the streets in Kuala Lumpur. An uncle talked him into going back to school in Kuantan. He later helped Gan to go to Perth to study at a technical college, where he obtained a pre-college degree.
At the time, his dream was to go to architecture school and learn to build low-cost housing that was "nice but affordable" out of local materials like the bamboo that is abundant in Malaysia. To this day, he still warms to the topic. "With bamboo technology you can build solid housing," he says.
Gan did architecture at University of New South Wales (UNSW). There he joined the Overseas Student Collective, which he credits with having "radicalised" him and made him a writer. In 1983, Gan was elected overseas student director at UNSW.
Later he helped to form a state-wide organisation, followed by a national organisation of overseas students. Others in his circle included Tian Chua (now Batu parliamentarian) and Elizabeth Wong (Selangor executive councillor).
The Overseas Student Collective focused on a number of matters related to "fees, racism, loneliness, and language", but their biggest issue was the introduction of visa fees for overseas students.
After five years in Sydney, Gan went to Melbourne, where he studied philosophy, economics and political science. He continued to be active in the Overseas Student Collective, which is how he came to know Premesh Chandran, who had come to UNSW in 1988 to study physics.
Malaysiakini chief executive officer Premesh Chandran - or Prem, as everyone calls him - was born in Petaling Jaya in 1969. His mother is Bengali, born in Calcutta, and his father was born in Malaysia, although his family is Tamil and comes from Sri Lanka. Chandran's parents met in UK, where they were both studying.
His father went into business, building water treatment plants for the government. After the economic downturn in the mid-1990s, his parents migrated to Australia, and Chandran, then still in school, spent time living with friends and relatives. He describes the experience as having toughened him up, and preparing him to make difficult decisions.
After graduating from university, Chandran came back to Malaysia, where he taught physics at the Universiti Malaya. The job gave him time to continue his activism with Nosca, the Network of Overseas Student Collectives in Australia, and with the human rights organisation Suaram, which he joined in 1992.
Chandran and Gan's paths crossed again at The Sun newspaper, where both of them worked in the Special Issues section. Founded in 1994, The Sun was known for "pushing the boundaries of politically acceptable journalism", and giving more space to opposition groups.
The Special Issues section contained longer, thoughtful stories, and was published three times a week. Gan eventually became its editor.
In addition to Gan and Chandran, two other future editors of Malaysiakini (Nash Rahman and Shufiyan Shukur) also worked there.
A defining moment for both Gan and Chandran occurred when The Sun refused to publish a Special Issues investigation into deadly conditions at one of Malaysia's illegal immigrant detention camps. Some months later, Gan resigned from the paper after editors spiked a column he had written about the arrest of activists at an international conference on East Timor in Kuala Lumpur.
After leaving The Sun, Gan went to Thailand, where he worked for The Nation. Chandran returned to Australia, where he earned an MA in international studies. After finishing his degree, Chandran came home to Malaysia in 1997, and began to work with the Malaysian Trades Union Congress.
Involved with the Internet, various NGOs and political parties during the 1998 reformasi period, Chandran was gripped by the feeling that "we had to do something".
Some activists were suggesting to start an underground newspaper. However, with the Internet growing slowly, and the government's pledge not to censor the Internet, it made more sense to start something online.
Gan and Chandran managed to raise about RM30,000. Their first plan was to buy a cyber café and run Malaysiakini out of the back. They actually bought a place near Petaling Jaya, but after six months decided to sell the café and keep Malaysiakini.
Malaysiakini's initial funding came from the Bangkok-based Southeast Asia Press Alliance (Seapa). Later they completed a private equity transaction with international venture capital Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF).
MDLF owns 29 percent of the company, and each of the two founders 30 percent. The Malaysiakini staff collectively owns 10 percent. For the first few years, staff members would get year-end bonuses of 15 percent of their salary in shares.
Even today, Malaysiakini operates on a shoestring. Although starting salaries are comparable with those at the mainstream media, senior editors are paid far less than their counterparts.
There is no overtime pay and, until recently, there was no reimbursement for transport fare. There are only three phone lines on the editorial floor, and callers often can't get through.
Yet there are compensations as well. People generally join Malaysiakini and stay there because they appreciate what chief editor K Kabilan (above, in blue shirt) calls "different thinking, different approaches, and a different atmosphere".
"We should be different," he says. "Our agenda is press freedom."
The development of Malaysiakini is intricately connected to that of reformasi, the name for the loose coalition of pro-democracy actors who came together after the sacking of deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in 1998. "In the aftermath of Anwar's sacking, the Internet as a political medium and as the medium of reformasi became virtually synonymous," says academic Graham Brown.
Chandran's own recollections confirm this notion:
"At that time there were lots of reformasi websites, which were very, very pro-Anwar. We tried to explain that Malaysiakini is going to be a news website, but it's not going to be reformasi, it's going to be independent. And nobody gets it. They say 'if you start a website, you guys are going to be seen like reformasi. And we said no, we are going to have bylines; we are going to write in a professional way."
Thus Malaysiakini's agenda was not "reformasi" in the narrow sense; it was much more than that. As Gan explains, from the beginning their goal was "to create an independent news organisation that would open up the issues of press freedom and human rights, enhance democracy, and show people why these issues were so important."
The press freedom wall
Malaysiakini is located in a four-storey walk-up in the Bangsar Utama neighbourhood of Kuala Lumpur. All that marks the building is a small sign. You have to be buzzed into the building, which Malaysiakini shares with the First Coach Bus service.
At the top of the first flight of stairs is the brick "press freedom wall", which is covered with framed editions of newspapers and magazines that were once banned in Malaysia.
Behind a door at the first-floor landing are the business office and technical support, both of which are housed in a large room with peach-coloured walls and a royal blue carpet. Chandran's desk sits between two rows of desks, in front of a bookshelf jammed with papers, folders, and reports.
Chandran has a shock of black hair, rimless glasses, and a moustache. He wears a button down shirt and khaki pants, no tie, and is usually focused intently on a laptop computer. A whiteboard behind the programmers lists the ISP addresses, server names, and gateways.
A closed-circuit TV sitting on a table near the wall of windows monitors the front door; it was installed after a police raid in 2003. Three big air-conditioners pump out cold air and several people wear fleece jackets. Walls are mostly bare, except for old pieces of tape, a clock, and a couple of whiteboards. There are parts of old computers lying everywhere.
The editorial room, one flight up, has a similar layout and the same stained blue carpeting. Gan sits at the head of one of five rows of desks. Desks and chairs crowd the walls, and another closed-circuit TV hangs from the ceiling. Near the door is a glass-topped porch table, with five green and white striped tube chairs.
Newspapers in three languages spill off the table. In a small corner behind the table is the meeting room. There are two whiteboards, one filled with passwords, access codes, and the 2008 election results. The other contains a list of stories ready to be edited or uploaded.
The room is generally quiet, broken occasionally by the sound of talk or laughter. A radio plays softly in the background. For someone who describes himself as an anarchist, Gan runs a tight ship.
(3) A Malaysia without Malaysiakini..., 7 November 2009
by Sim Kwang Yang
About six or seven years ago, one of the Malaysiakini editors invited me to write a weekly column for them.
Since then, I have been very committed to my new vocation of writing commentary on the Internet, first for Malaysiakini, and then for some other publications as well.
Except for those occasional lapses brought on by writer's block, bad health, and emergencies, I have always tried to keep to the deadline for Malaysiakini.
Steven Gan and his editorial gang in Bangsar Utama have never told me what to and not to write. They have never changed anything in my writing, except for corrections for typographical mistakes.
They have once or twice rung up to check my facts. I tell you this: Malaysiakini is a writer's paradise in Malaysia!
They never paid me enough, but that is alright. I heard they started making their first profit only in the eighth or ninth year of their existence.
I can only imagine their anguish month after month, year after year, in all those early years worried about paying bills and salaries.
I will only ask for a raise in my writing fees when Malaysiakini is publicly listed on the KLSE. You may laugh!
When I told my friends in my neighbourhood coffee shop over a few bubblies that tickets for the Malaysiakini 10th Anniversary big bash at the Sime Darby Convention Centre in Bukit Kiara on Nov 28 are priced at RM2,000, RM1,000, RM500 and RM100, they expressed their doubt whether there would be so many expensive tickets sold.
The Malaysiakini team would be used to this sort of public cynicism by now.
When Gan and Premesh Chandran presented their proposal in 1999 to set up an Internet newspaper that would aspire to international standards of journalistic excellence, such as "credibility, independence, fairness and accuracy", people then must have also been sceptical about the prospect of such a new media organisation.
It simply had never existed in Malaysia, right up to that point.
Hungry for a different kind of news
When they also proposed boldly to strike at financial independence based on revenues from advertisements and subscriptions, people scoffed at the ideas.
In those early days of the Internet in Malaysia, people expected to get everything on the Internet for free, and the commercial power of the Internet market had yet to be released to the world.
In 1999, it was indeed a bold idea for a new media business model that had never been tried. But it made sense.
An Internet newspaper does not need the kind of monstrous capital outlay as do the print and electronic media. You need no expensive printing machine, no news print, no massive staff, and no distribution and delivery system.
The maintenance and administration costs will be kept at a minimum. The founders were optimistic that with advertisement revenues, the company would likely be self-sufficient in a year and return profits within two years.
Malaysiakini went live on Nov 20, 1999, on the nomination day of a general election.
It caught the feverish mood of the people hungry for a different kind of news, and was soon swallowed by the public like hot cakes, especially by the reformasi audience.
But the birth of Malaysiakini was not without pain.
Malaysiakini has since become one of the case studies in the book by Cherian George entitled Contentious journalism and the Internet: Towards democratic discourse in Malaysia and Singapore (published by National University of Singapore Press in association with University of Washington Press, 2006).
This is what the book says about the beginning of Malaysiakini: "The company obtained much of its start up capital from abroad. The Bangkok based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa) gave a grant of US$100,000. The Media Development Loan Fund (MDLF) based in New York paid the company US$188,000 to build a software application. In 2002, MDLF invested US$1.3 million for a 29 percent equity stake.
"A disgruntled former employee revealed that the website had received money from the American financier, George Soros. The link was slim and indirect; George Soros' Open Society Institute was one of the groups behind MDLF."
This allowed Malaysiakini critics, especially those in the BN government, to question the loyalty of the portal. Soros was blamed for the financial meltdown in Malaysia and Southeast Asia in 1997.
The mood of the nation then was definitely nationalistic. The Malaysian prime minister at that time Dr Mahathir Mohamad said: "People who love Malaysia will not support Malaysiakini."
Fortunately for Internet journalism, Dr M had promised the international community not to censor the Internet in order to attract foreign investors to his pet project launched amidst great fanfare: The Multimedia Super Corridor.
Gan and Chandran protested that their financial backers have no editorial influence on the site, and they made MDLF sign a pledge of non-interference, while limiting foreign equity to under 30 percent.
What they did was historic for the Malaysian media industry. In Malaysia, investors pump in money and control the editorial policy of the media, to make money and to pursue a political agenda.
They would laugh at something like editorial independence, which ought to be the hallmark of good journalism. The Guardian of the United Kingdom certainly has always enjoyed non-interference from their owners.
Perhaps the demonisation of Malaysiakini by the government had taken its toll. They did not receive the advertising revenues that they anticipated. Then again, perhaps Netizens in those early days of the Internet in Malaysia expected everything to be free on the Internet.
As a commercial venture aiming at financial self-sufficiency, Malaysiakini did look wobbly in the beginning.
Finally, Malaysiakini made the choice to make the website available only to paying subscribers in February 2002. Standard subscription rates were RM10 a month and RM100 per year.
'We get the media we deserve'
It was a bold and desperate move. If my memory serves me right, there was not an online news organisation that could survive commercially without offline help (as was the case with Harakah) right up till that time.
Looking back, Gan's announcing the end of free Malaysiakini content was a plaintive appeal for readers' participation and support to keep independent journalism alive in Malaysia.
As he wrote at that time, "And when all is said and done, we get the media we deserve."
The response was not overwhelming. By early 2003, Malaysiakini had a subscribers base of 2,000, when they needed 10,000 to survive. It looked as if idealism and noble aims in journalism were about to succumb to the market forces of consumerism based on self-interest, greed, and indifference.
I thought at that time that Malaysiakini was going to lock up its door!
Then something happened in the history of our nation which seemed insignificant and expected at that time, and which had totally unexpected consequences that helped change the history of our nation in no small way.
One Monday in January 2003, 10 police officers marched into the Malaysiakini office, carted away 19 of their computers, and practically shut down Malaysiakini.
Malaysiakini came alive again within 10 hours of the shutdown, using different servers at another location. It is often said that we do not appreciate the value of something until we are on the point of losing it.
The police raid revealed to the Malaysian public the dismal prospect of a Malaysia without Malaysiakini. The waves of support from nameless readers poured in, offering loan of computers and donation of cash.
Malaysiakini no longer just reported news; they were in the news - in the region, and throughout the world. World media attention was suddenly turned onto a member of their own, struggling to bring independent journalism to a region not known for press freedom, and yet trying to squeeze onto the Internet bandwagon.
The police raid was to prove to be a blessing in disguise, as Malaysiakini turned the corner.
・SIM KWANG YANG can be reached at kenyalang578@hotmail.com.
(4)Mission impossible delivered, 14 November 2009
by Sim Kwang Yang
To understand the moribund state of the news media in Malaysia, you have to refer to the world press freedom ranking over the last few years.
In the 2008 global index on press freedom released by Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, or Reporters Without Borders), Malaysia crashed to the bottom quarter of the 173 countries surveyed.
The number one ranking has been shared by Iceland, Luxemburg, and Norway, with UK at 23, Japan at 29, and United States at 36.
Malaysia fell eight places from 124 in 2007 to 132 in 2008, firmly behind other Asian nations such as Timor Leste (65), Indonesia (111), Thailand (124), and even lowly Cambodia (125)!
We who love and work in Malaysia all our lives know our national media well. The large media conglomerates are all owned by companies either controlled by the ruling political parties or their cronies. They are the very embodiment of crony capitalism at its best.
They form the hegemonic instrument for the monopolistic propagation of the grand national narrative created by Umno and their side-kicks in the Barisan Nasional. The journalists there sing the hymns of what historian Eric Hobsbawm calls “official nationalism”.
In short, the Malaysian mainstream media is the most powerful weapons in the hands of the ruling elite to dominate the national conversation, to create a one-dimensional and uni-directional worldview of the citizenry so that all other discourses will be exiled to the remote margin. It perpetuates political power for the ruling BN coalition.
If the national media is a mirror that reflects our national soul, then our Malaysian media is an opaque and cracked mirror.
Paradoxically, the Malaysia media remain a great commercial success story. That is probably because the Malaysian audience had no other choice. They have probably accepted this role for the media because they know no other form of journalism.
That is why the appearance of Malaysiakini in November 1999 was such a momentous event in the history of our nation. Those visionary pioneers in this brand new Internet newspaper shows what independent journalism that aspires to international standards of journalistic standards such as “credibility, independence, fairness and accuracy” can be like.
Unlike many amateur blogs, Malaysiakini has always been professional, sticking to the same professional rules observed by credible international media organisations.
Even in those early times, Malaysiakini filled a vacuum for “real” news, and for Malaysians who suffered from a ravenous hunger for news and views from the margins, the news and views served up by Malaysiakini every day were like water to a thirsty man in the desert.
In an interview with PBS news host Terrence Smith upon winning an international award one year after the launch of Malaysiakini, editor-in-chief Steven Gan had this to say, “We have news stories that are not being reported by the mainstream media every day, and that is why we've been so successful; we've gone from zero to a hundred and 20,000 visitors a day.”
Malaysiakini's mission statement states:
“To use information technology and the Internet to provide fresh, free, fair and fast news to the Malaysian public so as to set new standards of journalism and to support the development of freedom of speech, social justice and democracy in Malaysia.”
What Malaysiakini set out to do then was to demonstrate how a media organisation can play the true role of the Fourth Estate - outside the three branches of government - as an additional arm of checks and balances.
Their groundbreaking achievement was immediately recognised by international media watchdogs. Within a year, Malaysiakini won the following international accolades:
• Reporters San Frontiers' Press Freedom Award 2000
• Committee to Protect Journalists' International Press Freedom Award 2000
• Asiaweek's 50 Most Powerful Communicators in Asia 2000
• International Press Institute's Free Media Pioneer Award 2001
Naturally, Malaysiakini was most critical of the government, leading many BN politicians and partisan senior civil servants – especially the police – to perceive Malaysiakini as “anti-government”. Malaysiakini reporters have seldom been invited or permitted to attend government functions and ministers' press conferences.
Politically engaged, yet non-partisan
From the very early days, the Malaysiakini team had obviously given plenty of thought to what journalistic independence meant.
A publication can be politically engaged, independent, and yet non-partisan at the same time. This has caused some unhappiness among opposition supporters in the past whenever Malaysiakini highlighted the internal problems of the Pakatan Rakyat.
Within the political culture of Malaysia for the past 60 years, non-partisan news media has never existed until the appearance of Malaysiakini. Naturally, many strong supporters of the Barisan Nasional and now Pakatan have been infested with this mentality that “if you are not with us, then you are against us”.
Actually, on any important issues of the day, things are not as clear cut as black and white.
Independent journalism does mean giving both sides of the political debate equal time and equal space. Over the years, I have noticed how Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan has deliberately pursued this policy.
And even “rubbish” that I hate has seen sunlight on his site. In fact, it is this sort of independence that will nurture a different form of public space for healthy debate to take place on those burning issues of the day.
In his book 'Contentious Journalism and the Internet: Towards democratic Discourse in Malaysia and Singapore' by Cherian George, Gan was quoted as saying this about his reporting staff, “I tell them, you can take positions, but you must include the other positions, even in opinion pieces.” That is the kind of editor very much after my own heart.
While Malaysiakini is striving towards financial independence, it is strictly speaking not a commercial project per se. We all know that. They are not there to make big profits for themselves and the shareholders, like the newspapers and the TV stations.
What they try to do is more like journalistic activism, to blaze the trail on how good journalism can be done. They have already expressed their activist ambitions very clearly in their mission statement - to “set new standards of journalism and to support the development of freedom of speech, social justice, and democracy in Malaysia”.
Based on this mission statement alone, there is no doubt that Malaysiakini has achieved its goals, and more.
Today, Malaysiakini has succeeded and thrived because as an activist movement in journalism, they have struck resonance from many Malaysians in and outside the country. Today, they are published in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Tamil and Chinese. They have a vibrant section for vivid and dramatic videos. They even have a lifestyle section!
On Nov 28, Malaysiakini is going to have a big bash to commemorate their 10th anniversary. In hindsight, the achievement looks easy. But 10 years ago, Malaysiakini looked like Mission Impossible.
I sent an email to Gan on what his most gloomy day was in all those angst-filled and laborious years in Malaysiakini.
His reply was this: “My most gloomy moment was realising Malaysiakini was doomed just as we were making an impact. That was in 2001, in the aftermath of the dotcom bust where most of our Internet start-up advertisers disappeared virtually overnight.
“It soon dawned on us that advertising alone would not be able to keep Malaysiakini afloat financially. Our decision to go subscription was really the last resort. We hated doing it, but we had no choice.
“We didn't even think it would work, but there was no harm in trying - after all, we would have to close shop anyway.”
I asked him what his proudest moment was, and he replied, “It was March 8, 2008 - I never thought I'd live to see the day that Malaysians would wake up from their slumber and discover the power of the vote.”
Of course, our common struggle for freedom of speech, social justice and democracy is far from over, and the road ahead is long and winding. But I can look forward to the day when all the media in Malaysia can practise the kind of independent journalism like Malaysiakini.
By then, Malaysia will squeeze into the top 50 of the international media ranking and the existence of Malaysiakini may become superfluous. Fortunately for Malaysiakini, that day is not going to come anytime soon.
Happy 10th Anniversary, Malaysiakini!
(End)
