Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Give our TV boys room to do good job

Tomorrow's (Thursday July 17) newspapers should carry Anwar Ibrahim on page 1 again. The news of his arrest in Segambut was spread by those who got the first hand information through SMS. By lunchtime, the arrest was already talk of the town.

Radio and TV news carried bits and pieces of the arrest. Under the circumstances, radio and TV should give regular updates so that the people will not speculate as to what had happened. If this is properly done, rumours can be minimised, or even eliminated.

In other parts of the world, TV networks would show the drama as it unfolds. Some TV journalists would bring their crew to the ACA office where Anwar had gone to be quizzed. They would probably follow him to wherever he goes so as not to miss any development.

Our TV fellas are not doing this because they are either short-staffed, or told by their political masters not to give Anwar too much airtime. When the Anwr-Ahmad Shabery Cheek debate was shown live on Tuesday night, the streets were almost empty because most people were watching it on TV.

If the local TV boys were left to do a comprehensive job on covering a running story, I'm sure they can do a fairly decent job. But that is not how TV operates here...

2 comments:

Letting the time pass me by said...

If the media really covers the real story, I think we must be really surprised to learn the events happening in our country..

So much cover-up, so much restriction and so much policy....

I'm not sure if any of the mainstream media people really willing to take the risk...

Unknown said...

Whenever a media people kena saman for publishing the plight of the people, nobody come to voice their support to the media people. So better be safe and jaga tengkuk sendiri. Media susah bukan ada org tolong pun.