Tuesday 21 October 2008

Malaysiakini journalist resigns...

... and takes responsibility for the error over Najib 'manifesto' report.

"It is my fault and I stand ready to take full responsibility and resign," said Wong Choon Mei, who wrote the news report DPM unveils manifesto for top Umno job from a ‘support group’ and which was wrongly attributed to Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak.

Wong joined Malaysiakini three months ago and has been a journalist for 10 years with stints in The Edge, Reuters and Channel News Asia.

Malaysiakini editor-in-chief Steven Gan said the news organisation was upset over the incident, adding that the report should not have been published.

"It was a serious misjudgement on her part and we accept her resignation," said Gan.

Wong conceded that she had not verified the contents of the ‘manifesto’ with Najib's office. She had received it by e-mail on Sunday.

The report was uploaded late that night without going through the standard double-checking by a second editor. Wong was the editor on duty for that day.

"We deeply regret the error," said Gan. – Malaysiakini

6 comments:

Lee said...

Malaysiakini regreted publishing the unverified report relating to Datuk seri Najib's manifesto and the editor on duty resigned to take responsibility.This shows the integrity and reponsibility of the online news portal.Can we expect the mainstream media to follow this good example?

Anonymous said...

Memang patut apa yang dia buat tu. Ni dah kira kes berat, menabur fitnah dekat orang lain. Kalau tak lagi susah cerita nanti.

Anonymous said...

Baguslah dia resign, dia perlu bertanggungjawab dengan apa yang dia dah lakukan. Lain kalai kalau nak siarkan berita, perlu lebih berhati2, pastikan cerita yang disampaikan adalah benar, bukan hanya bertujuan untuk menjatuhkan orang lain saja.

Anonymous said...

Wong owned up and resigned. That says a lot about her.

Some may condemn her. But I salute her. She made an error, apologised and resigned.

That is the standard of ethics which journalists should uphold.

She walked the talk. Good for you Wong!

Anonymous said...

Have to agree with anon 11:05am

This is the standard of ethics not only journalists (irrespective of whether they're from mainstream media or news portals) should uphold, but politicians too.

Anonymous said...

Good for you!!

A mistake is a mistake...Najib taking advantage of this mistake to Cry Wolf. How come Najib hasn't declared being upset about all the other scandalous news posted about him? (possibly he hasn't seen them as they are not MAINSTREAM MEDIA)

Hamid Albar has just announced that Internet News Media is Now MAINSTREAM MEDIA. Then how come Najib never read them? Does Hamid Albar ever knows what he is talking about?

In the End ALL IS SANDIWARA. We're just not sure which Act it is.


Phhooi