Enhancing Islamic Journalistic Ethical Conduct Through Press Council

Abstract

The recent power shift in Malaysia comes with a bundle of promises including the vow to establish a regulatory Council to govern the press industry. The proposal however, has been resurfacing now and then even since 1973. Regardless, little is known as to what extent such establishment of a Press Council would have in any role in regards to protecting or enhancing Islamic journalistic ethics in Malaysia. It is well known that the Islamic values of journalism and the western standard of press ethical conducts are often viewed as in conflict between one and another. With the rise of convergence of multi-medium of media technologies of which are mainly dominated by the west, Islamic press ethics seems to be increasingly disregarded, unobserved, and forgotten compared to its western counterpart. This would, in our local Malaysian context, dilute Islamic values in our society in the long run, as press and media are agents that shape the integrity of a community. Thus, the main purpose of this research is to identify the gaps between the western and Islamic journalistic ethics where it is possible to harmonize both. The recent proposal to establish a Press Council in Malaysia is viewed as an opportunity for us to recommend any improvement that can be made to the proposed Malaysian Press Council in its framework in terms of Islamic perspective. The paper adopts the method of textual analysis of the legislation and considers the secondary data on the working of the councils in various countries.