Nude ‘ear squats’ video: media fail to see big picture

As expected, the story of a nude woman who was apparently forced to do ‘ear squats’ by a policewoman took centre stage in many of yesterday's newspapers. Selected video stills of the naked woman’s ordeal were published on the front pages of various newspapers. The news was also flashed around the world as one of the BBC’s main news items.

A violation of human dignity and human rights such as this one certainly deserves the media spotlight. This shocking incident has rightly provoked outrage on both sides of the political divide as well as among the public.

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi was reportedly bewildered by the incident, which occurred hot on the heels of the alleged degrading treatment of three Chinese women nationals at the hands of enforcement officials. Like Abdullah, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and other cabinet ministers, too, were outraged.

To reiterate, this ugly incident deserves media coverage. One hopes, however, that an element of sensationalism has not crept into the editorial calculations of the newspapers and websites that highlighted the ‘nude incident’, especially those that also carried the video clips.

Feel the pulse

Have the media now become emboldened? Hardly. If they were, they would now be taking another look at the shocking and disturbing testimony of former ISA detainees and other allegations of torture and abuse.

Instead, what we have here is another example of “cue journalism”. The media received their cue to publish when the ruling party politicians expressed shock and outrage over the incident.

But because the same ruling party politicians have not expressed any concern over the treatment of ISA detainees, the mainstream media have remained silent about the treatment of detainees under the ISA. In truth, the media wouldn’t need to look far to listen to accounts of the harrowing treatment of ISA detainees.

There is little attempt to probe beyond the main news story to look at abuse of power and torture under the ISA and the whole issue of custodial violence, which, one suspects, has been swept under the carpet for far too long.

There is also little attempt to highlight the delay in the setting up of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) - one of the many recommendations in the report by the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police. Indeed, the media have failed to diligently remind the government about those recommendations.

The mainstream media should take heed of the concerns of ordinary Malaysians and not solely pander to the interests of the powers-that-be. Taking the cue from government ministers is not enough. The media must also feel the pulse of the nation, if at all they are serious about being the voice of the people, as some of the media organisations pretend to be.

Students’ plight marginalised

The cover story of the abuse of the nude woman in yesterday’s Star eclipsed another report about the chairperson of the Parliamentary Human Rights Caucus, Nazri Aziz, calling on universities to drop all charges levelled against students who were involved in activities related to the recent campus elections. He said the universities’ accusations against the students were “trivial”. This report was buried in page 13 of The Star under the rubric of ‘Parliamentary Report’. Remarkably, Nazri was also reported as having suggested the amending of the repressive Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA).

Another news item related to this issue was published in the same newspaper on page 20. Headlined ‘Students want more liberty’, the report was about eight Malaysian Chinese youth organisations calling on the Higher Education Ministry to “amend two clauses in the University and University College Act to liberalise student activities in institutions of higher learning”.

These two reports would have made a bigger impact had the newspaper placed them side-by-side. But then again, that would have been too much to expect from the self-styled ‘people’s paper’.