Steven Gan. Picture: Lim Huey TengMalaysiakini and the Energy of Unbiased Media in MalaysiaJanet SteeleNUS Press: 2023.In some methods, to know the historical past of Malaysiakini is to know the historical past of contemporary Malaysia. That’s largely what Janet Steele makes an attempt to convey in her newest ebook, Malaysiakini and the Energy of Unbiased Media in Malaysia.
The juxtaposition of an impartial media outlet’s journey in opposition to the backdrop of Southeast Asia’s political realities was beforehand leveraged by Steele in her 2005 ebook Wars Inside: The Story of Tempo, an Unbiased Journal in Soeharto’s Indonesia, which focuses on the work of the famend Indonesian journal through the oppressive New Order period, main as much as its banning in 1994. On this new tome, the journalism professor turns her consideration to neighbouring Malaysia and the story of the nation’s first, and maybe “most vital”, impartial information organisation. To these acquainted with the panorama of Southeast Asian media, Malaysiakini stands alongside Tempo and the Philippines’ Rappler as media retailers that not solely persist beneath authoritarian governments but in addition give these governments a run for his or her cash.
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