Some Vietnamese journalists have asked my opinion about the arrest and detention of two of their own.
Nguyen Viet Chien, 56, a reporter for Thanh Nien, and Nguyen Van Hai, 33, reporter for Tuoi Tre, were jailed last month, according to the Vietnam Journalism site. VietNamNet reported that the two will be in “temporary detention [...]

With all the world watching a seemingly endless election campaign in the United States, who would turn toward Malaysia, a Southeast Asian nation with only 25 million residents?
Malaysia’s national elections (voting is scheduled for March 8 ) have much to teach us about new democracies, in my opinion. For one thing, the press (both print [...]

The publisher of a popular news Web site (Malaysia Today) was held by Malaysian police and questioned for eight hours yesterday, then released (brief report and comments here).
At issue: A claim that Raja Petra Kamarudin, editor of the Web site, is responsible for “postings and articles … [that] were disrespectful to the King and Islam, [...]

David at Strobist kindly (I think) tagged me with the Thinking Bloggers meme. I am invited to post links to five blogs that make me think.
Well, it would be too simple to link to blogs that already appear in my blogroll, wouldn’t it? After all, the charge is not to list my favorite blogs, or [...]

Although Malaysia is a small country (about 26.6 million people, or less than 10 percent the population of the U.S.), its press and broadcast policies are worthy of study. Take the recent government edict issued to a dozen mainstream newspapers and five television stations telling them to ignore any and all online information that might [...]

This is not breaking news, but I’ll bet most Westerners haven’t heard about it.

John Dvorak asks: “What kind of newspapers do they have in Malaysia that they would sue somebody for speaking their mind — when it’s their job to expose people’s opinions?”
Indeed, indeed!
And let’s not be too smug. Do you think this could never [...]

If you care about Malaysia, you already read Jeff Ooi’s excellent blog, Screenshots. For those of you who don’t know, Ooi is a photojournalist and a champion of press freedom — which you don’t find much in Malaysia. The lesson is that when the government-muzzled newspapers and TV news fail to report a story, the [...]