According Director of Merdeka Centre, Ibrahim Suffian, while Malaysians agreed that the media was the key to eradicate corruption and to improve transparency, only one third of the respondents thought that it was playing an effective role. Furthermore, most Malaysians perceived media reporting on corruption was in favour of the ruling Barisan Nasional. The other institution that Malaysians thought the media was in favour of was the police.

In the survey, more than 40 percent of the respondents identified the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal as among the widely reported incident of corruption. Among those who pointed out various cases, 51 percent were dissatisfied with the media reporting. The coverage of money politics and elections by the media were said to be the least satisfactory.

"The perception of bias is probably due to the lack of diversity of sources in corruption coverage, even though the survey and our own monitoring point out that the mainstream media do routinely report on corruption. The PKFZ scandal is quite illustrative of the media because the reporting is largely based on government-sanctioned information," Gayathry said.

On the other hand the survey also revealed a segment of the public aware that corruption was a problem but was not adequately informed about it. Almost 55 percent were not able to name a corruption case that was widely reported by the media, while 16 percent were not aware of whether grand corruption was serious in Malaysia. The public was also split as to whether corruption affected their personal life.

"A bolder media is needed to serve the interest of those with lower level of awareness of corruption as well as those who were very concerned about it. The media can do so by producing more investigative journalism and critical pieces that serve to inform the public on the threats of corruption to society," Gayathry said.

Close to 1,300 people aged 20 and above were interviewed via telephone from 16 September to 12 October. In addition, two focus groups were conducted among twenty participants living in Klang Valley. This is the second public survey on media conducted by Merdeka Centre on behalf of CIJ since 2008 and supported with grants from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF).

Ends

Released by

Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) and Merdeka Center for Opinion Research. To view the survey report please click here

For more information and please contact Wai Fong at 03 4023 0772.