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
Image sources:
RTM ; MediaPrima ; Astro
