Bloggers under fire!

I'm sure most of us in the blog world in Malaysia have heard of the lawsuits filed by NST and some of their senior management against Jeff Ooi and Rocky. Tony has blogged about it here in his personal blog and I've been following this issue closely. Given that this is not specifically an 'educational' issue, I think we've both refrained from discussing it in this blog. But I think it's high time that I flesh out some of the pertinent issues in regards to these lawsuits.

First of all, let me say right off the bat that I am categorically against the actions taken by NST and its senior management against Jeff and Rocky. It's a classic case of David(s) versus Goliath, the resources of the NSTP group against two individual bloggers. Why didn't NST also sue BBC over the story that a column which was written by Brendan Pereira was actually plagiarized from a Mitch Albom column? (which from my understanding, forms part of the case against Jeff) It's clearly a case of not only wanting to muzzle these two bloggers but also to send a strong signal to the larger blog community to 'take note' of what they write.

What impact will these cases have on the blogosphere in Malaysia? I thought about the possibility of some of our private colleges or public universities suing myself and Tony for some of our posts, which in some people's opinion, might be considered 'defamatory'. Might a blogger also be sued for posting a negative review of a restaurant, or for saying that he or she is frustrated by the actions (or inactions) of a politician over a certain matter, or for pointing out the deficiencies of a certain product?

Perhaps what is more ironic about this situation is that it's usually individuals who sue newspapers and journalists for making defamatory remarks about these individuals in the journalists' newspapers, not the other way round! For a short and insightful opinion on this, please read Azmi Sharom's letter in Malaysiakini.

I wish Jeff and Rocky all the best as do most of our readers, I'm sure.

But if there's any good that comes out of these cases, it is that:

1) Civil society and members of the public have and will continue to 'mobilize' in response to this issue. There's nothing like an interesting story of the small guy taking on the giant corporation to incense some members of the public and to capture the attention of the public at large.

2) That future lawsuits against bloggers will not be as likely given the negative 'press' that has been given to the NST following the lawsuits. If there is growing momentum to 'boycott' the NST as a sign of protest, the already flagging sales of that newspaper might be further affected (as well as the group's bottom line, of course).

(This is quite sad since I know that there are good journalists at the NST who just want to get on with their jobs and write good and insightful stories / columns / pieces)

Hopefully, Tony and I won't be sued anytime in the near future. But if we do, hopefully some of our readers will come to our aid! :)