During the BN's reign, the opposition had always accused the mainstream media of not providing them coverage or worse, demonising them on the orders of their political paymasters.
However, now the Sarawak BN government has accused state-owned RTM of blacking out their news since Pakatan Harapan took over the federal government.
Speaking to Dayak Daily, state minister Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah claimed that several federal agencies have stopped cooperating with them.
He said apart from state ministerial functions not receiving airtime, information regarding their programmes and activities is not disseminated as well.
“Personally, I think this should not be the way.
“If our chief minister or other ministers from BN have programmes which are apolitical, RTM should be impartial and publish the news,” he added.
Abdul Karim claimed that the 7am RTM news programme has also stopped broadcasting functions related to the BN state government.
“Sarawak should not be penalised by the national media just because we are the opposition,” he said, adding that the notion of “if you are not with us, you are against us” is unhealthy.
“We are still Malaysians and in our chief minister's functions... we start with the singing of Negaraku... We are still part of the country,” he pointed out.
Pakatan Harapan's manifesto had promised to liberalise the media and to free it from government control in order to promote unbiased reporting.
Soon after the May 9 general election, DAP lawmaker RSN Rayer courted flak for suggesting that TV3's broadcast licence be revoked.
Since Harapan's historic win, the mainstream media wasted little time in providing extensive coverage to the new government and its leaders, including the opposition Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia and MCA-owned The Star. -Malaysiakini
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