KOTA KINABALU: Conventional media still has an important role to play as the majority of readers still depend on such media for verified and accurate news reports.
Minister of Special Tasks Datuk Teo Chee Kang said conventional media, such as newspapers, were facing a tough challenge with technological advancement and the Internet.
Teo, who is also Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president, said the outlook of media and news reporting had changed tremendously in the past 10 years.
“It used to be the case where television channels were the only ones monopolizing multimedia reporting. But now such things can be done through the Internet… we have bloggers, electronic media so on and so forth,” he said during LDP’s Chinese New Year brunch with the media here yesterday.
Nonetheless, Teo said conventional media was still relevant provided that they keep up with the times as how things worked was completely different compared to 10 or 20 years ago.
He said conventional media faced stiff competition from electronic media, bloggers and unofficial websites.
However, conventional media still has a vital role to play, he said.
“I think the majority of readers regard conventional media as the standard (of the industry) as newspaper reports are verified and accurate,” said Teo.
He urged netizens and the public to be wary of information disseminated via the Internet, especially through short message service (SMS) and WhatsApp because these messages might not necessarily be true.
He said some irresponsible individuals with specific agendas could possibly spread fake messages over the Internet with the aim of causing anxiety among the public.
During the event, Teo also thanked the media for their unbiased and independent reporting all these years, especially in the past few months where LDP was facing its leadership crisis.
“We notice that our friends from the media have been very professional in their reporting and for that I say thank you,” said Teo.
He acknowledged that news reporting was a challenging job as reporters had to rush from one venue to another during festive seasons to cover events organized by government and non-governmental bodies, as well as putting in extra long hours at times.
“For that I salute the good effort and good work of our friends from the media,” he added.
Also present at the brunch were LDP deputy president Senator Datuk Chin Su Phin, vice presidents Datuk Lim Ming Hoo and Chin Shu Ying, Youth chief Tsang Hieng Yee, Women chief Datin Shim Nyat Yun, secretary general Yong Wui Chung, chief publicity officer Albert Kok, organizing secretary Peter Chong Su Leong and supreme council member Datin Margaret Chong Mui Ling.