MULTIRACIAL Reverted Muslims (MRM) president Firdaus Wong Wai Hung has hit out against the ulterior motives of Chinese language media reporting which tends to pick up controversial news about Islam solely for the purpose of increasing traffic to their portal thus enhancing their advertising revenue base.
Towards this end, he has issued an explanation to the Bukit Aman Classified Crime Investigation Unit (USJT) as a witness 0n Chinese-language media reports and comments from netizens with Islamophobic elements.
“While disclosure and awareness need to be made on social media about Islamophobic reports and comments, a police report, too, is warranted so that the authorities can conduct an investigation,” he penned on his Facebook page.
“The case is being investigated under Section 298A of the Penal Code (for insulting Islam). I have carried out my responsibility as a Malaysian to defend the Rukun Negars (National Principles). I believe I am not alone in this struggle.”
Earlier, Firdaus who is also a renowned Muslim preacher was quoted by HarakahDaily expressing his suspicion as to why Chinese language media whose reader demographic is likely to be non-Muslim Chinese is keen to highlight Islam-related issues, including statements by Muslim preachers like himself.
“Why doesn’t the Chinese media feature more articles about Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism?” he wondered.
“At first, I tried to think positively that maybe the Chinese media wants to help spread the teachings of Islam among non-Muslim Chinese. However, the type of news they choose does not reflect such goal.”
This is when Firdaus who converted to Islam on Aug 10, 2005 realised that coverage on Islam promises them substantial news value.
“News about other religions has no news value because they aren’t well-received by readers. Less traffic means less ad revenue for them,” he justified.
“Either way, the agenda of the Chinese media remains to promote Islam to readers so that they can better understand Islam and to foster religious harmony or the Chinese media can take an anti-Islam stance by highlighting news that they know will make their readers angrier and stay away from Islam.”
Added Firdaus: “There may be other reasons but why aren’t the 3Rs (race, religion and royalty) ruling made applicable to the Chinese-language media?” – Jan 17, 2024
