R_AGE

Thanks for the question! Ian here. Personally, I don't believe any media can be completely unbiased - but we have to do our best to be fair. What I always recommend is for people to consume a variety of news. If you're following a CNN, make sure your follow a Fox News as well. That will help you form a more balanced opinion for yourself.

To answer your second question: No, we cannot justify it. Most of the journalists in traditional media I know are good, honest, hardworking people who want nothing more than to report without fear or favour. Sadly, the conditions at the time were not favourable for us, and we were often silenced. Could we have done more? Yes. And that's something we'll have to live with, and make amends for with even better reporting now that conditions have changed.

Finally (and thankfully), yes, I think the press will have more freedom now - and it's time for us to show the country what we're really made of.

I think most journalists will agree that political ownership of media is problematic. Personally, I think it's something that should be regulated. - ian

Hey /u/cahaseler funny you should mention that, I've been developing a story on exactly that. In a nutshell...thing's aren't great. Demonetization of news has been hitting our news publications hard, like it has been all over the world.

Like the US, different publications are trying out different ways to keep our work sustainable, ranging from sponsored content, paywalls and and subscription models. It's still considered relatively early days for us so it's hard to tell what's working and what's not.

As for press freedom, Malaysia has had a complicated past with press freedom prior to our latest general elections (where previous government Barisan National lost after an unbroken 61 years as the ruling coalition). Newspapers, including ours, would be shut down for reporting on unflattering stories.

Things are supposedly better now, but it's been less than 6 months since the former opposition party, Pakatan Harapan took over, so fingers crossed. But (and you knew that was coming), there's still a long way to go, cos the PPPA, Anti-Fake News Act, Sedition Act, etc. all still hang over our heads. And that's not fun.

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Seriously, these are really great questions. Here goes:

1. I think we'll have to let our work speak for itself. We always believe that the people aren't stupid - if we started pandering to certain parties, people (like your good self) will call us out on it. We have been very transparent about our approach and values, so if we ever deviate from it, our audience can hold us accountable.
2. That's a conundrum journalists around the world grapple with. Should the media be "governed" by the government? Most would say no, so if that's the case, can we trust them to self-regulate? The idea of creating an Media Council independent from the government seems like the best way forward to enforce some ethical standards, at least.
3. Finally, on the question about us being owned by The Star. Our answer is that you shouldn't stop being skeptical of us. Critique each of our stories and see if our facts are right, if the reporting is balanced, if the presentation is fair. If it isn't, call us out on it.

Wow, thanks! We use the stuff in Adobe Creative Cloud. That's Premiere Pro for video editing, and AfterEffects for our motion graphics.

But I think the quality comes all throughout the production chain, from pre-production, to shooting, to post-production. It's a lot of moving parts, but with a hard-working team, where everyone's motivated to do good work (and for good causes), it's not hard to keep the quality up from start to finish.