Mahathir blasts Western media

Mahathir blasts Western media

KUALA LUMPUR (DPA): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday blasted the foreign media as "racist" and "arrogant" know-it-alls who should learn how to be humble and fair in their reporting.

He said he regretted that the foreign media's reporting on Malaysia was so negative, and hoped the journalists would "reform" themselves.

"For the European journalists, learn to be humble, stop assuming that you know better than non-whites about how to run countries and administer justice," he said when opening a media conference for developing countries in Shah Alam town, near Kuala Lumpur.

"Stop being arrogant and assuming that you know everything because that is far from the truth. Stop being racists," added Mahathir, in his latest broadside against the Western media.

The 74-year-old premier's government has come under a barrage of foreign media criticism in the past two years, especially after the sacking and jailing of his former deputy Anwar Ibrahim and when Malaysia imposed selective capital controls during the height of the Asian financial crisis.

Referring to the controls, Mahathir said the foreign media sided with currency traders and continued to predict Malaysia's economic ruin, even though the country's economy has fully recovered.

He accused the foreign media of not bothering to understand how the controls worked but, instead, were content to criticize by "parroting something they heard somewhere."

The premier admitted that balanced and fair reporting would not sell, but said the press had a responsibility to prevent conflicts and help society.

"But it must not have an agenda of its own. This is because when it has one, its reporting will be biased and truth will go out of the window," he added.

The outspoken Mahathir, who has been premier for 19 years, has previously accused the foreign press and Western governments of trying to incite unrest against his government.

Most of Malaysia's leading media organizations are pro- government. All have to apply annually to the government for a publishing license which can be revoked, as has happened to several pro-opposition magazines and newspapers.