Home Minister said every paper has crossed the line in reporting sensitive issues one time or another

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein plans to meet chief editors of newspapers on the reporting of sensitive issues.

He said he wanted to ensure that the chief editors exercised caution in the reporting of sensitive issues on race and religion and that they understood they would be held responsible for their action.

Commenting on a report published in Utusan Malaysia recently alleging that certain groups wanted to make Christianity the official religion,

Hishammuddin said: "There are times when the Malay community were unhappy with the reporting of the Chinese newspapers (on sensitive issues) and vice versa.

"It is the responsibility of the chief editors to ensure that their organisations do not go beyond the boundaries set in reporting such issues," he told reporters.

Despite the clarity of the country's publishing laws and guidelines, he said, "every paper has crossed the line (in reporting sensitive issues) one time or another. Now it's Utusan (which has crossed the line)."

Hishammuddin said that it was difficult to control the flow of information on sensitive issues, especially with the emergence of the new media.

"If it (the information) does not make it to the mainstream papers, it will somehow or rather get to the new media like online news portals, Facebook and the short messaging service," he said.

The big Google is watching you

German officials aren't buying Google's excuse that it harvested WiFi data by accident. Last week Google revealed that it had unintentionally collected WiFi data from open routers using its Google Street View cars.

The data was only discovered when the German Data Protection Authority asked to audit the WiFi data collected by the Google Street View team.

Google said that up until the time of the audit, it had been under the impression that it was only collecting MAC addresses and SSID information. However, the audit showed that Google had been collected fragments of payload data from open WiFi networks.

Data collected by Google included emails and web addresses users were viewing. Google said that it would be deleting all of this extra data and said a third party would be brought in to ensure this was done in the correct manner. However, it seems Peter Schaar, Germany's federal commissioner for data protection, and freedom of information, is not satisfied with Google's story.

"So everything was a mistake, a software bug! The data was collected and stored without the authorization of the project's managers or even the company's managers. If we go along with this story, this means the software was used without having been properly tested beforehand," he said, according to TGDaily.

Indeed, Germany is not the only country who has found issue with Google's behavior. The Irish Data Protection Authority Friday contacted Google and asked that all data accidentally harvested in Ireland be deleted.

Google today confirmed that this Irish data was deleted over the weekend in the presence of an independent third party.

Should Nga Kor Ming sue those misreporting?

Often it is said that the media's tendency to get overwrought about almost everything under the sun and politicians aim to get free ride from media.

Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming

Undeniably, it is claimed that although politicians frequently communicate to media but media change some of their message especially those have different schools of thought. It is a process by which the media determines what issues to cover and how big as media prefers more confrontational issues to less one.

Ironically, mainstream media tends to pick up on these claims. But they never take into consideration that the political damage has already been done. Strong praise and ugly words directed at politicians. It clearly shows that the media cannot effectively compete with the new media.

Basically, a credible media should engage itself in a fair and free reporting. The news reporting should be balanced with the demands of fair play without bias.

Unfortunately, it was reported frequently that the media’s role in spreading confusion regarding the political statement. In an attempt to be balanced, media often inadvertently tilts the scale too far to accommodate the political statement that looking to spread misinformation and confusion.

Its embarrassing that media is making the situation worse by trying to twist the statement and give a free ride in newspaper to certain politicians.

In fact, the media should not be blamed if it reports on matters that needed to be made known to the people as long as it does not divert from the facts, as said by Information, Communication and Culture Minister Rais Yatim.

In this regard, he said it was not proper for certain quarters to accuse the media of twisting facts in its reporting as he felt the Malaysian media was responsible in relating facts of importance to society.

Rais Yatim said Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming should not blame the media in general but rather single out media that he charged was twisting his statement.

He said, "As long as the facts are true, the media can report, but if the facts are false, then the party aggrieved has the right to sue those misreporting".

The questions arise: Do politicians used to get free ride from media? Should Nga Kor Ming sue those misreporting?

NO POLITICIZING THE BEIJING OLYMPICS

Thousands of Chinese students and expatriates convene in Old Palace Yard in London on April 19, 2008, to protest against the BBC's and other British news organizations' distorted and lopsided reports on Tibetan secessionist violence and London leg of Olympics torch relay. Some western people participating the protest too.

Currently, many Chinese, whether in China or outside the country, are deeply indignant at western media coverage of Tibet, Dalai Lama, Olympics and Freedom & Democracy issues.

Many issues claim to be conveniently muddled to confuse or even misinform the public.