Journalists slam ministry's plan to sell news
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Journalists are calling for a boycott of any sale of news by the Ministry of Information, after its deputy minister Ye Htut said it planned to sell news at a daily or monthly rate to private news groups.
“It is the duty of the Ministry of Information to release news,” veteran journalist Hanthawaddy Win Tin said. “Before, they gave free propaganda and forced us to print it. We should boycott their plan to sell [news],” he said.
Shwe Naing Ngan daily chief editor Phoe Thaukkyar described the plan as “really unfair”. “News was available free of charge in the past … Government propaganda should not be sold to private newspapers,” he said.
The plan was particularly odious considering that most private news publications were operating at a loss, Phoe Thaukkyar said. “We are publishing daily newspapers for the public at a loss because freedom of press lies only in the private media. As such, the government’s plan to sell state-level news is intended to suppress the daily newspapers,” he added.
Currently, national news – including meetings between the president and world leaders as well as the president’s local and oversea trips – is monopolised by state-owned media through the Ministry of Information, News and Periodical Enterprise and Myanmar News Agency. News from ministries is also released through state-owned media.
Privately owned media groups have been trying to get access to government news, but ministries have been urged to publish it themselves or release it through state-owned media.
Speaking to the Yangon Times, Ye Htut said his ministry was in negotiations to sell national news and that it would announce its plan after next week’s water festival.
Zaw Thet Htwe of the Myanmar Journalists Union said the Ministry was not a news agency. A plan to see it become one “is not in the interest of the state or the people”, he said.
Aye Aye Win of The Associated Press said the ministry should not try to turn a profit this way. “It seems unnatural for the ministry to seek economic profits,” she said.
Selling state level news might lead to unfair competition between government-run and privately owned newspapers, a member of the Myanmar Journalists Network said.
