LABUAN: Activist Haji Abdul Jalil Ghani
(pic) praised Umno Youth leader Datuk Seri Dr Akmal Salleh for taking Malaysiakini to task for the slip-up where the news portal posted an image that was hurtful to Muslims as a whole.
He was referring to a blunder where an image of pigs meant for an article on pig farming in Selangor ended up as part of the news portal’s coverage of the party’s general assembly.
“Such a mistake is not expected from a leading news portal when even other media like Sinar Harian and Sin Chew were not spared action by the authorities and were penalised,” he said.
He was referring to the inaccurate report by Sinar Harian of the new IGP being a party member and the Chinese newspaper which was compounded for wrong portrayal of the Malaysian flag during the Chinese Premier’s visit last year.
Abdul Jalil also questioned whether the Malaysian Media Council (MMC) was practising double standards by keeping silent on the blunder by Malaysiakini and yet actively giving opinions in several other cases.
At the same time that the blunder happened there was an issue about a FMT reporter who posed a question to a visiting British politician at an event, which was deemed as “sensitive”.
But only the FMT reporter’s case caught the Media Council’s attention. “Isn’t this a case of double standards by the Media Council?”
He said Malaysiakini’s mistake was serious given that the animal was a taboo for the Islamic faith, leading Akmal to describe it as “kurang ajar” (rude) and demanding that the boss of the portal apologise to the Assembly.
“I recall that the Malaysian Media Council was set-up with much fanfare with an allocation of RM5 million under the 2026 national budget.
“I wanted to lodge a complaint regarding the pig fiasco but the Media Council website said it was not ready to accept my complaint.
“I’m sure there were many like me who also tried doing so but could not because of this,” he said.
“What greeted complainants was a message stating ‘coming soon. We will share more information soon on how you can file any complaints or grievances’.
“So why launch the Malaysian Media Council when it had yet to get its act together?” said Abdul Jalil.
