Media Council Bill: In the process of identifying the founding member – Nie Ching

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Communications has sent back the draft of the Malaysian Media Council Bill to the Protem Committee of the Malaysian Media Council for the process of identifying and including the names of relevant parties as founding members.

Deputy Minister Teo Nie Ching said there are three categories for founding members in the Malaysian Media Council, which cover the categories of media organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) related to media and media practitioners, as well as academics, including individuals who are active in media-related issues.

“Based on the list I received from the Chairman of the Protem Committee on July 22, it shows that for the category of media companies we already have 15 (media companies), for the category of media partners (associates) there are seven, media practitioners there are nine and for non-media members there are seven so far.

“So, anyone who is interested in joining the Malaysian Media Council as one of the founding members can contact the protem committee or contact me. They can examine the draft bill, and if they agree with this draft, they can join as one of the founding members,” she said.

She said this at a press conference after greeting Tamil Malar employees at the newspaper’s headquarters here today.

Also present were Deputy Minister of National Unity K. Saraswathy and Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) M. Kulasegaran.

Teo said as soon as the process was completed, the draft bill would be brought to the Congregation

Minister and Attorney General’s Office (AGC) to obtain approval.

“But surely we can’t take a long time to wait for everyone to agree on the draft bill. If everything goes smoothly, we hope that in the next Parliament session we can bring this bill to Parliament,” she said.

The establishment of the Malaysian Media Council is to develop and implement a reporting code of ethics that can empower the nation’s journalism profession and ensure news reporting is carried out responsibly by the media.

The council also works to promote communication between media practitioners, the government, and the public, in addition to supporting the professional development of journalists and media organizations.

Regarding today’s program, Teo said the visit to the newspaper’s headquarters was one of the efforts to build a stronger relationship between the Tamil media and the ministry.

“Our intention is that we will visit media organizations one by one to create a relationship where they understand that we are very approachable; if they have a problem, we can help and are ready to help,” he said.

Earlier, Teo and Kulasegaran spent friendly time with Tamil Malar staff and distributed Jalur Gemilang in conjunction with the National Month celebration.