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Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Opinion Poll: Rate your favorite News source

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Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day, and in conjunction with that, Freedom House’s Freedom of The Press 2011 report was released. No surprise that Malaysia’s ranking didn’t improve a single bit. In fact, it’s remained pretty much the same as last year’s report, which puts us in the Not Free category, this time tied at 143rd place with the wonderful nations of Angola and Madagascar.

What’s interesting is that Malaysia is not alone – the report states that press freedom worldwide is at its lowest in a decade. Not only is traditional press being muzzled, but the more authoritarian governments around the globe are trying to find ways to reign in alternative and online media.

Walski, for one, certainly doesn’t need to tell you that this is exactly what’s happening in Malaysia.

In any case, you can read the short-form report booklet below. The more detailed report is expected to be released later, as has been the case in previous years.

But surprisingly, in our 143rd-most-free-in-the-world press environment, a lot does get reported. Depending on how you report the news, and of course, who owns the news outlet, you can actually get away with a lot in Malaysia, as we’ve seen of late.

Heck, you can even promote pornography on prime time news these days, provided said pornography implicates someone your news outlet owner doesn’t like. As with a lot of things, it’s who you know, and not what you know, that amounts to a bigger hill of beans.

So naturally, with WPFD, porn, and all, the environment was ripe for yet another myAsylum poll to be swiftly rolled out…  
(what the poll is about, and more, in the full post)

But instead of asking the mundanely obvious, like how free do you actually think the Malaysian press is, Walski thought that he’d put up a slightly different poll. What he’d like is for you to select which one of the news outlets listed, in your opinion, is the MOST credible and trustworthy. And if your most trusted news outlet is not one of the ones listed (there obviously were too many to list individually), you’ve got the Other option, which requires you to type in your own.

The poll is situated in the usual place (the sidebar), with the usual sharing options made available as always.

One thing that Walski would like to explain: he has consciously excluded any and all political party news organs. So, no Harakah, and no Rocket. But if these ARE the news outlets you trust, or any of the other party/organization publications, there’s always the Other option.

If you, or someone you know, has got a Blogger-based blog, clicking on the icon below the poll allows you to host the poll on that blog, in a manner that Walski can best describe as easy peasy. Similarly, if it’s a Wordpress blog – simply use the shortcode [polldaddy poll="5008907"]. And if you need the generic script for the poll, please let Walski know (via the comments), and he’ll gladly provide it to you.

News outlet montage, image hosting by Photobucket

As always, Walski would like as representative a poll result as possible, so please tell your friends, family, farm animals, and pets about this poll, especially those whom you think aren’t as liberal (or conservative) as you might be.

Historically, though, in this respect Walski doesn’t always get what he wants, and so he suspects that the poll results are usually skewed towards folks who are of like mind to him.

But he’s hopeful, as always, that this time around things will be different. So do Walski a favor and spread the word, won’t ya? At the same time he’ll have to figure out ways to get the word out to folks he thinks are not on the same wavelength as him.

The poll will remain open until Midnight on Friday, May 13, which is just about 10 days away. Interesting date, right? So, what are you waiting for – caste your vote already!

In the immortal words of those Jedi geeks: May the Fourth Be With You