PENANG, Malaysia - The Malaysian media seem to
be caught in a dilemma when it comes to giving coverage
to former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, recently
released from jail after the Federal Court overturned an
earlier sodomy conviction, but barred from politics
until 2008 after the same court on Wednesday upheld a
separate conviction for corruption.
Six years
after adhering closely to a media blackout imposed by
the government in September 1998, soon after then-prime
minister Mahathir Mohamad sacked Anwar and had him
arrested on charges of corruption and sodomy, local
newspaper editors still are hesitant to give the
pro-democracy leader prominence on their pages despite
his release from jail being a major international news
item.
Before the historic Federal Court decision
to free Anwar from his sodomy conviction on September 2,
the mainstream media had largely sidelined him in a bid
to marginalize the charismatic politician from his
supporters.
And because Anwar received little
mainstream media coverage, many - including newspaper
editors and journalists - mistakenly concluded that the
public had lost interest in him and that the "Anwar
factor" was no longer relevant in Malaysian politics.
The international media, to some extent, took their cue
from local media coverage.
"So, when Anwar was
freed, the major newspapers were caught flatfooted,"
according to an entry in the Malaysian Media Monitors
Diary - a weblog, or online web-zine or diary usually
with facilities for reader's comments and discussion
threads - managed by Charter 2000-Aliran, a
press-freedom advocacy group. "Essentially, they [the
media] had to choose between their own line - that Anwar
was no longer relevant - and the reality that vast
sections of the Malaysian public were intensely
interested in what happened to him."
In the end,
local papers chose to highlight Anwar's release from
jail but deftly pointed to the release as evidence of
judicial independence in Malaysia. The reporting -
though short of detailed coverage - did not hurt
newspaper sales either, as copies and free special
editions were quickly snapped up.
Journalists
who had previously run down Anwar in their reports when
he was incarcerated were now scrambling to get their
"exclusive interviews" with him and to talk with his
family members. The unexpected news coverage surrounding
Anwar sparked hopes of a fresh dawn for press freedom in
Malaysia.
"Anwar Ibrahim is free. So is the
Malaysian press," enthused columnist Josh Hong, writing
in the popular independent web portal Malaysiakini. "I
mean, the dailies that have plagued the Malaysian public
with official news and government propagandistic
writings, masqueraded as commentaries, are now free to
mention the name Anwar Ibrahim and, more importantly,
carry his images."
In the two days that followed
his release, the crowds that thronged Anwar's residence
in Kuala Lumpur showed no sign of abating. When he left
for Munich on September 4, to seek medical treatment for
spinal injuries made worse while he was in jail, some
5,000-10,000 chanting pro-democracy supporters brought
large sections of Kuala Lumpur International Airport to
a standstill.
With his departure for Germany,
however, the coverage on Anwar evaporated. And with the
latest Federal Court ruling preventing Anwar from
immediately re-entering politics, his marginalization in
the media is likely to continue.
Media analyst
Mustafa Kamal Anuar sees Anwar's recapturing of the
popular imagination as one of the factors that
contributed to the reduction in coverage. "Perhaps there
is a feeling among the media that if they still carry on
with the same intensity of coverage, it would somehow
sustain the momentum of the euphoria over Anwar's
release," Mustafa said.
Initially, observed
Mustafa, the media had no way of avoiding news of
Anwar's release, as many Malaysians were anxious to
discover the outcome of his Federal Court appeal. But,
according to Mustafa, such coverage came with a certain
spin.
"When you look at the way it [Anwar's
release] was covered in the newspapers, it was reported
in such a way as to cast a positive light on the
administration of [current] Prime Minister Abdullah
Badawi," Mustafa pointed out.
As the days passed
and the public euphoria continued, Mustafa noted, it
must have dawned on the media that they could not go on
providing such wide coverage of Anwar, as they were
inadvertently thrusting him back into the limelight.
"They were inadvertently rekindling public
imagination for pro-democratic reforms or
reformasi, as Anwar had been a rallying point for
the movement in the past. This could have caused some
degree of nervousness in media circles and the
government," he pointed out.
The overturning of
Anwar's sodomy conviction once again raised questions
about Mahathir's role in publicly shaming his deputy
over those allegations in 1998. Questions also have been
directed at the local media that diligently toed
Mahathir's line because of warnings from authorities and
the fear of closure by the Home Ministry.
Before
Anwar's trial even began, the normally staid front pages
of the country's mainstream newspapers purveyed
allegations as truths and blared explicit details - in a
heavily Muslim country - of the sex charges against him.
"We were sodomized," cried the headline of a story about
his alleged partners, with most of the dailies either
ignoring or ridiculing Anwar's denials.
The
editor-in-chief of the pro-establishment New Straits
Times, Kalimullah Hassan, was quick to rally to
Mahathir's defense after Anwar's release. In his regular
column, he took a swipe at a foreign wire-service
writer's suggestion that the release marked "the end of
the Mahathir era".
Reminding readers on Sunday
that the court had cleared Anwar of the sodomy
conviction but not the old corruption allegations,
Kalimullah wrote in his column: "There is no merit in
revisiting the last six years because it is still an
emotive and debatable issue. The courts have freed
Anwar, but the same judges maintain that he engaged in
homosexual activities - the reason Dr Mahathir gave for
sacking him as being unfit to lead the country."
Kalimullah conceded that Anwar's supporters and
friends did not believe the sodomy accusation at all and
maintain that he was framed. But the editor was
nonetheless effusive in his praise for Mahathir: "Dr
Mahathir is just Dr Mahathir to the majority of
Malaysians - a good leader, a proud nationalist, an
ardent patriot and a statesman. This is how history will
remember him."
When news broke of Anwar's
successful surgery in Germany, The Star, Malaysia's
top-selling English-language daily, had little to say
about the changing political landscape. Instead, it
carried a story with pictures on both its front and back
pages announcing that Vijay Singh had usurped Tiger
Woods as the world's top golf player.
