Western-style journalism, Zam?

The BBC carries the story about five bodies pulled out from a lake in Selayang. They had been migrant workers.

Some workers in the area said there had been an immigration raid by Rela a few nights before and things got ugly.... as in thug ugly.


BBC journalist Jonathan Kent writes:

"He could not see the Rela officers in the darkness so I asked whether he had heard them speaking Malay.

"Yes, there were, there were," he said. "The police were shouting: 'Come out come out, if you run away we will kill you'.

"Those caught in their hands were beaten by two or three policemen. They treated them like cattle. Their voices were very haughty and arrogant. Their voices were like soldiers and policemen." The first of the bodies was found later that day."


I didn't even see a mention of this in Bernama or our local papers, and Kent makes a note of this, too.

The BBC report - a case of Western-style journalism by Info Minister Zam's definition - is fine balanced reporting, in my opinion. And it reads well. It sought and included responses from the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of Rela, about the raid. It provided perspective to the issue of migrant workers here and human rights organisations stand against groups such as Rela.

As almost always, the official response - Malaysian-style - doesn't quite square with eye-witness accounts.

Five lives have been lost, migrant workers no less. Their bodies were all found in a nearby lake a few days after a raucous raid.

So Zam, with your Malaysian-style belukar of information dispersal, how does one approach the actual truth? How does one even know anything if it's censored right in the bud?

It's about reaching for truth. It's about ripping apart the cloaks of deceit. It's about growing up. It has never been about style. Not western, not eastern, not Malaysian. Transparency wears nothing.