The Proposed Malaysian Press Council in the Digital Era: An Idea Past Its Time?

The recent power shift in Malaysia comes with bundles of promises of institutional reforms including the pledge to enhance the freedom of speech and the press. One of the pledges is the establishment of the Malaysian Press Council to govern the newspaper industry. The idea itself, however, is not new and has been resurfacing now and then since 1973. The reason that the establishment of the Press Council in Malaysia does not materialise could be attributed to many obstacles, one of them is that such a council is viewed negatively since it is considered out of time, anachronistic, autocratic and redundant since such a council need to regulate both the traditional and digital press. It is considered redundant because the law has provides the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission to govern publication in the cyber space. The objective of the study is mainly to evaluate and to justify the establishment of the Malaysian Press Council in the contemporary digital age; its role and relevancy despite the existence of onerous regulatory frameworks especially in the form of statutory obligations that regulates both newspapers and online contents. In this research, the authors employ the method of textual analysis of legislation and case law, and consider the secondary data on existing works with regards to the proposal on the establishment of the Malaysian Press Council. The paper will also look at the current trend of the digitalization of the newspaper industry which also would determine the need and urgency to establish a Press Council in Malaysia that govern both paper and online based journalistic outputs