Tan Sri Nallini Pathmanathan
KUCHING (June 20): The Malaysia Media Council (MMC) will uphold journalism standards and ensure that the act is not turned into a means of discouraging the journalism most needed by a democracy, its chairlady Tan Sri Nallini Pathmanathan said.
She said the community was accustomed to thinking of threats to the media, such as pressure on journalists and constraints on what may be reported, as restrictions.
“Those threats are real. But another quieter threat that has grown serious and works in the opposite direction is the misuse of the media’s own identity.
“A masthead copied. A news graphic fabricated. A screenshot falsified. Content that no newsroom published all dressed up and circulated as though it were genuine reporting.
“This is not merely ‘fake news’ but an attack on the credibility of journalism itself. When the name and logo of a real news organisation is used to carry a falsehood, it is not only that organisation that is harmed — it is the public’s trust in the media as a whole,” she told a dialogue held in conjunction with the National Journalists Day (Hawana) 2026 in Penang.
Nallini cautioned that the public’s trust would be hard to recover once it was depleted.
She observed that what once took some skill to forge could now be produced convincingly and at scale by artificial intelligence (AI) — synthetic images, cloned voices, entire articles written in the style of a trusted title.
According to her, MMC answers questions of fact, not questions of political merit.
“The question is not ‘is this claim fair or politically correct?’ but only this: Did this newsroom actually publish this?
“That is a question the newsroom itself can answer in minutes. It is verifiable, it is non-political, and it sits squarely within the council’s competence,” she said.
During an election, she said citizens have every right to read, share, argue and take part but healthy participation depends on information that can be trusted.
“When a piece of election information arrives, we are asking people simply to pause and ask two plain questions. Who is making this claim? And where did it actually come from — an official site, a verified account or merely a screenshot with no link behind it?”
Nallini called on each media organisation to nominate a verification officer who can be reached quickly during an election period to issue immediate clarifications when their own identity is misused.
“We need your support in helping the public tell legitimate reporting apart from fabricated content. This is a shared interest.
“When one masthead is forged, it is not one organisation that suffers — the whole ecosystem is weakened. And when trust in the media weakens, democracy itself becomes more fragile,” she pointed out.
She said the MMC is ready to play as an independent, impartial and responsible coordinator rather than to control debate.
“We are here to defend the integrity of journalism, to ensure that honest reporting can be recognised for what it is, and to help the public decide on the strength of information they can trust.
“That is a task worth beginning. And Johor and Negeri Sembilan are where we begin,” she added.
The Johor state election will be held on July 11 while voters in Negeri Sembilan will cast their ballot papers on Aug 1.
Nallini said the MMC aimed to build a complaints and adjudication process that is fair, swift and worthy of public confidence.
MMC also aspired to ensure that its standards reach across the whole of the profession, and not merely those who have already joined, she said.
“This council can be of use to the government, to the industry and to the public alike only for as long as it is owned by none of them.
“Independence of this kind is not declared in a speech; it is shown, decision by decision, in whom we prove willing to disagree with. That is the standard the council intends us to be held to,” she added.
