FOCUS  Anyone who keeps tabs on the mainstream media in Sabah knows that the state has the freest press in Malaysia. It’s likely to stay that way given the politics in Sabah where anything goes. Besides, the readers will not stand for anything less.

Upko (United PasokMomogun KadazanDusunMurut Organisation) deputy president Wilfred Mojilip Bumburing’s recent high praise for the Sabah media is merely stating the obvious with boring regularity. It’s like preaching to the converted.

One reason for press freedom in Sabah is the stiff competition posed by the number of local dailies which is startling. Another is the fact that except for the tabloid New Sabah Times, owned by the family of Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman, all the others are independent media.

The contrast between the east, albeit Sabah, and west could not be any greater.

There is no place in Sabah for the Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia kind of racist fare or BN-poodles like the New Straits Times, also Umno-owned, and to a lesser extent The Star which is owned by the MCA.

Peninsular Malaysia-based dailies, except for The Sun from the time it went free, are however available in Sabah in limited numbers. Their sales are poor and getting increasingly worse except for The Star, but in Sarawak which doesn’t have a free press, thanks to Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud. Even Tamil newspapers from Peninsular Malaysia can be seen on sale at the news stands in Kota Kinabalu.

Besides the New Sabah Times, there are three English-language dailies in Sabah i.e. the Daily Express and the Borneo Post while the tabloid Daily Mail is still largely confined to Labuan. The number of English dailies is surprising in a state where the people, including the Chinese, prefer speaking in Bahasa Sabah. This is a variation of the Malay language.

The hugely popular tabloid Borneo Bulletin used to circulate in Sabah when it was a weekly based in Kuala Belait, Brunei. Since its shift to Bandar Seri Begawan as a daily, only subscriber copies are available in Sabah.

The Utusan Borneo is a daily in Bahasa Malaysia and Kadazandusun. Both the Daily Express and the New Sabah Times have inside pages in Bahasa Malaysia and Kadazandusun.

Then there are the Chinese dailies i.e. the Overseas Chinese Daily News, the sister daily of the Daily Express; the See Hua Daily News, the sister daily of the Borneo Post; the Asia Times, the Miri-based International Times and the Morning Post in Tawau. The Sandakan Jih Pao went defunct several years ago but there are persistent rumours that it will be making a comeback soon.

There is any number of blogs and semi-news portals led by sabahkini.net, a scandal site with a record number of police reports against it. It is not known how many law suits the portal is facing.

Local news hogs the limelight in Sabah dailies with significant coverage of Peninsular Malaysia and to a lesser extent Sarawak. There’s hardly any news on Brunei.

Sabah coverage is mainly the work of local journalists. Even the national news agency, Bernama, gives scant attention to Sabah and probably it’s the same with Sarawak and Brunei.

The main beef in Sabah among the media is that the Peninsular-Malaysia-based give very low priority to news from Sabah and Sarawak. Any coverage is very low-profile, often limited to fillers, and generally placed at the bottom of the page. This makes one wonder why their bureaus in Sabah keep churning out news which will not see the light of day. The Bernama staffers in Sabah must be in a similar predicament.

Peninsular Malaysia-based Bahasa Malaysia dailies tend to give more coverage to news from Sabah and Sarawak but in keeping with the ruling elite’s “these are our colonies bequeathed to us by the British” theme. The emphasis is on the greater glory of the banga, agama and negara – race, religion, and nation – theme.

The Peninsular Malaysia-based alternative media is seen as definitely pro-opposition alliance – read Pakatan Rakyat – in the same way that the mainstream media in the peninsula roots for the ruling federal Barisan Nasional coalition. And therefore just as bad.

Even if anything the alternative media are decidedly even more hostile than the pro-BN mainstream media to any idea of Sabah and Sarawak opting for a third political force in the Malaysian Parliament. Opposition leaders in Sabah and Sarawak who show any signs of breaking away from PR for a more independent stance are roundly condemned and vilified without being given the right of reply.

The reading among the local media in Sabah is that it serves no purpose whatsoever for Malaysian Borneo to go from the frying pan (BN) into the fire (PR). The BN parties are happy with this take. Anything that further divides the opposition alliance is good news to them. They draw a line, however, at any idea of a third force making inroads into the BN vote banks in Sabah and Sarawak.

East is east and west is west. Will the twain ever meet? Patently, there’s a need for a greater east-west balance in the flow of news. The mainstream media could yet lead the way and report events in Sabah and Sarawak in a more balanced way. The same cannot be expected of the alternative media, which sees Sabah and Sarawak as the preserve of PR, except for the odd report now and then which makes its way past the “censors”.

* The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysian Mirror and/or its associates.