When the mainstream media fail to report the facts...

On 21 April, a couple of PAS candidates filed petitions with the Penang High Court against the successful BN candidates in last month’s general elections. One of them was Abdul Kadir Rashid who ran (unsuccessfully) against candidate Abdullah Badawi for the Kepala Batas parliamentary seat.

According to Kadir, Abdullah violated Section 32(b) of the Election Offences Act of 1954 by failing to disclose his 1999 election expenses when he filed his papers for the recently concluded election.

A day later Keadilan President Wan Azizah Wan Ismail issued a press statement saying that, because of the petition, Prime Minister Abdullah’s position as member of parliament is in doubt. He should therefore go on leave pending a court decision.

Surely the petition by Kadir and Wan Azizah’s statement are newsworthy events as they involved the newly-elected prime minister. And if the media were concerned with the facts, what more legitimate or credible ones than that coming from a court petition and a lawfully elected member of parliament who is also head of an opposition party?

If not front page material, the stories should have been reported by the media.

But no, not according to the mainstream media. NST, The Star, and theSun did not carry a word on the petition or Wan Azizah’s statement. Why the blackout on both these legitimate news items?

On the other hand, if the petition had been filed by a BN member and the statement had been made by a BN member of parliament against the opposition, we believe the mainstream media would promptly, perhaps even generously, have covered the stories.

By ignoring both the PAS petition against Abdullah and Azizah’s statement, the mainstream media are actually encouraging people to ask all kinds of questions such as: why are they ignoring legitimate news? Why should such public facts on the prime minister be hidden from the public when he, himself, has been promoting his clean, ethical, transparent and accountable BN government? Is it a no-no to carry negative or adverse news relating to Prime Minister Abdullah?