Week 5: News and You, Again

Who owns the newspaper and TV station in your country? Do you think this has an effect on the news that you hear?

In Malaysia, there are a few major broadcasting companies to choose your viewing pleasures from. The oldest and first TV station is RTM, which stands for Radio Televisyen Malaysia. TV1 and TV2 are owned by RTM, which in turn is owned by the government. MediaPrima offers channels TV3, NTV7, 8TV and TV9, as well as some newspapers. Astro, on the other hand, provides satellite channels for both local and foreign programmes.

Truthfully said, while others may rage over the government owning this and censoring that and being biased on everything, I myself am not very bothered by it. Who doesn’t want to control news about themselves, filtering out the negatives from the public? Don’t you find yourself wanting to untag yourself from horribly-taken candid photos of you sleeping with your mouth wide open on facebook?

So to me, it doesn’t really matter who owns any particular newspaper or TV station. They own those stations and newspapers, I think it’s entirely up to them to be biased or not with what they publicize. You try spending thousands of money building a TV station and tell me if you’re able to show completely unbiased media. At some point you would have sponsors to please, or joint companies whom you’d rather not taint with your broadcasts. It doesn't matter what portions or distortions they show you. What matters is what you do with what you see and hear.

Some would claim that company-free sources like articles on the Internet have more truth to it than others. However, can one be entirely sure of it? In the end, whatever news it may be, as long as you’re not there to witness it yourself, there’s always going to be a discrepancy in what you see and hear from second sources. I don’t normally believe that newspapers and TV show 100% of what’s out there, no matter what company owns them. It doesn’t affect the news that I hear, because if it’s truly an important piece of news, I would look it up from other sources to get the general common idea of the so-called truth. Unimportant news don’t really register in my head, so again, it doesn’t matter which version I’m listening to, filtered or not, government-biased or not.

I read or watch from whichever sources available, but I always take news with a grain of salt no matter where it comes from.



Image sources:
RTM ; MediaPrima ; Astro