Democracy in Malaysia by Khoo Boo Teik Khoo Francis Loh

Author:Khoo Boo Teik Khoo, Francis Loh [Khoo Boo Teik Khoo, Francis Loh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Ethnic Studies, General, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781136825088
Google: VvyrAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-01-14T05:55:37+00:00

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PRESS

It has been widely acknowledged (see, for instance, Ahmat 1992; Khoo 1988; Lent 1982; Mohd. Safar, 1996) that the first newspaper to be published in what is now called Malaysia was the English language Government Gazette, later called the Prince of Wales Island Gazette (PWIG). The PWIG started publication on 1 March 1806 on the island of Penang, then a presidency called Prince of Wales Island under the control of the British East India Company.2 Owned by A.B. Bone, an entrepreneur from Madras, India, who had come to the island – complete with his printing press – to improve his lot, the PWIG was, perhaps not surprisingly, a commercial newspaper targeted not at the locals but at the colonialists. As Lent (1982: 253) puts it, the PWIG ‘served as a house organ for the foreigners [the colonialists], advertising their wares, printing government notices and keeping them abreast of happenings in England’.

At that point in the early 1800s, there was no existing law in the Straits Settlements governing the issuance of newspaper licences. For reasons that have not been explained, the governor of Penang issued Bone with a licence. However, Bone himself requested that each issue of the PWIG be censored by the government prior to publication, following of practice of the press during the period.3 Thus, it could be argued, began the links between the state and the press in Malaysia. Indeed, as Lent (1982: 253) observes, ‘All the early newspapers had one thing in common – they were subsidized. The PWIG received monthly subsidies in exchange for printing government announcements, and on a few occasions, was granted government loans which were to be paid in job printing.’

When Bone died in 1815, B.C. Henderson took over the PWIG, after seeking permission to do so from the Penang governor. Interestingly, the governor’s permission, conveyed in a letter sent by the acting state secretary, James Cousens, made clear the government’s approach to newspapers in its desire to control their contents. In his letter, Cousens stated that,

The Hon’ble Governor in Council having sanctioned your establishing a printing press at this Presidency and the publication of a newspaper entitled the Prince of Wales Island Gazette subject however to the following restriction – viz. That you will agree not to insert in your paper or otherwise to print and publish anything in the smallest degree obnoxious to the government and that previous to the publication of the paper you submit the copy sheet to the Secretary to Government any part which they might conceive to be improper for publication. 4

The PWIG lasted 21 years, its last edition being printed on 21 July 1827. During that period, only a few other newspapers, including non-English language ones, had emerged, but these newspapers often disappeared as suddenly as they appeared. Available historical accounts of the growth of the press during this period (see Khoo 1988; Lent 1982; Mohd. Safar 1996; and Tang 1988) indicate that virtually all of the early newspapers, English language or otherwise, were produced in the three Straits Settlement states of Singapore, Penang and Malacca.

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