Media organisations address labour rights in the media industry, promote media sustainability and independence

PUTRAJAYA - A memorandum to enhance the workplace culture and improve the labour rights of media workers in the industry has been handed over to the Communications and Multimedia Ministry.

The memorandum was delivered by former Bernama Mandarin News anchor Yap Xin Ni known as Sydney together with the representatives from Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) Executive Director Wathshlah Naidu to a representative of Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa at 11.19am today.

This followed an incident where the news agency allegedly threatened Sydney after she voiced her concerns about the workplace culture on a Facebook post.

Sydney claimed there was no salary increment despite serving the company for over three years as well as not having enough manpower to provide better quality of the Mandarin news.

“Bernama asked us to lower the news quality to ensure that we can still go on-air everyday but the quality is very low.

“I think this is something that I cannot tolerate and accept,” she told reporters after the memorandum was handed over.

She further said that she tried to reach out to the chairman of Bernama Senator Ras Adiba Radzi before she resigned but her effort was to no avail.

“I don’t see that Bernama’s management is trying to solve the issue and that is why we come here today to hand the memorandum to the ministry with the hope that we are able to get some response,” she said.

Sydney added that the issue was not personal but it also involved every media worker whereby they were not being paid enough.

Meanwhile, Wathslah said her organisation (CIJ) paid attention to the issue because it was a common problem in the media ecosystem.

“It is about creating an environment that gives you financial security and sustainability and this is translated into ‘quality news, quality media’.

“(Because) if you are uncertain all the time, you are afraid of losing your job, you don’t experience the benefits of promotion, you end up just coming to work without any soul to it,” she said.

In regards to Sydney’s case, Wathslah said one of the main concerns would be the way the vernacular media or the multilingual media was approached.

“It is critical as they are well-resourced because this is a plural society, we have a diverse multilingual society and they need to be informed across the board with different analyses.

“We cannot rely on one media to provide the narrative and perhaps translate the information,” she added.

Among other concerns have raised in the memorandum would be the lack of job security, independence and sustainability of the media industry.

Bernama Chief Executive Officer Roslan Ariffin however denied claims of a defamation suit made against Sydney and said that she had never raised these complaints during her three-year tenure at the company.

Therefore, the ministry was urged to conduct an investigation and publicly disclose the findings on the matters related to Sydney’s allegations and related state responses as well as to review the current employment and contractual practices among media agencies.