Unlike previous elections, Malaysians are turning to the internet to get their fix of news and features concerning the nation's 12th General Election like never before.

With the internet, Malaysians no longer have to depend on political party-owned media establishments like the New Straits Times, Star, China Press, Nanyang Siang Pau, Utusan Malaysia, Berita Harian and Tamil Nesan for their daily dose of news.

According to a Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) report in Sept 2006, there were 13.5 million internet users. This amounts to a penetration rate of 47.8 percent, said the MCMC report.

Young and urban Malaysians, who have become wearied by the lack of debate and criticism of government policies, now turn to the internet in droves. For what was once missing in the mainstream media is now replaced by a group of non-politically linked organisations and individuals to give unfiltered news and the public a forum to air their opinions.

Another human rights advocate, Aliran, which publishes Aliran Monthly, has now started the Election Monitors' Diary to counter spin the mainstream media.

malaysia votes 220208On top of established independent news portals like Malaysiakini.com and Malaysiareview.com, three former journalists have decided to exit the newsroom to set up an election news portal.

Led by former assistant news editors Jacqueline Ann Surin, Cindy Tham and Off the Edge writer Danny Lim, MalaysiaVotes.com went live on Wednesday.

The following is a special interview with one of its founders, Jacqueline.

Malaysiakini: The three of you were already working with an established group of newspapers under Nexnews covering The Edge group of magazines and theSun. Why the need to go online suddenly?

Jacqueline: It wasn't a sudden decision. Cindy (Tham) and I had already been thinking, since last year, about the need to set up an online news site because of the restrictions from political pressure and government scrutiny we faced as assistant news editors and writers at theSun. And mind you, theSun was a good paper led by some of the best editors I've ever worked with in my more than 13 years as a journalist.

Despite theSun being a good paper, we often had to censor or play down stories in order not to jeopardise our printing permit. As a columnist, some of my pieces had to be canned because the political climate didn't allow for it to see print.

We figure that under present circumstances, it is unlikely for the Printing Presses and Publications Act to be reviewed or repealed, and the only way to continue practising good and independent journalism is to go online.

With the many online portals here already, how do you plan to distinguish yourselves from the others? Besides election issues, what can we expect to see on MalaysiaVotes.com?

MalaysiaVotes.com is the beginning of a bigger online news site project that we are planning to launch in the next few months. We are not yet ready to launch the news site because we think we need to put in more thinking and research so that we get the business model and branding right. But because of the general elections happening so quickly, we couldn't afford not to cover it, and so we set up MalaysiaVotes.com.

MalaysiaVotes.com will only cover issues related to the 2008 general elections (see About Us on our site). Having said that, we hope that we will be able to incorporate it as a sub-site to our news portal once that has been launched to cover future elections whether by-elections or state elections or the next GE.

From the outlook itself, MalaysiaVotes.com, has blog-like features (ie a readers' comments section). What is the intention?

Well, we think that firstly, the traditional media has been slow to develop a means by which readers can better interact with the news and with the people who write the news. In some ways, that's because of traditional mindsets in the newsroom. In Malaysia compared to the US, for example, media accountability is quite low in that readers are hardly able to hold the media accountable for what gets reported.

Both Cindy and I, as the movers behind the online project, believe that it is important for us as journalists to be held accountable by legitimate stakeholders whom we report on or who are affected by the news that we report.

Technology now allows us to do this and to facilitate broader discussions about an issue. So, journalists and newsmakers are not the only people who can "write" the news. This means there will be greater accountability and diversity in the news, which is a good thing for democracy.

Technology is also changing people's experience of the news, and reader interactivity is becoming an important part of people's experience of the news. As journalists, we need to acknowledge this and move with the times so that our service/product matches people's legitimate demands and interests.

What are your plans once this election is over?

Sleep and go for a spa! A beach holiday if possible! Really. Right now, it's just three of us multi-tasking and managing everything - the site, comments, interviews, press conferences, getting people to write for us, writing and editing, doing interviews. It's been very intense, and that's why we are so thankful for the support we're getting from other Malaysians who are contributing their writing to us.

And then after we've recovered, Cindy and I will concentrate on setting up our company and the news site.

There are currently two well-known columnists, Wong Chin Huat and Farish A Noor. Are they going to permanent features and are there going to be more columnists?

We've had many Malaysians lend us their support for our humble attempt at covering the elections as fairly and independently as we can on a very limited budget. Chin Huat and Farish Noor are just two of them. Others have also committed to making contributions, gratis, to our site so that we can keep the site running and alive with daily updates.

As much as they are able to, we will continue to welcome contributions from the both of them and from other Malaysians who may have legitimate views to share.

Independent and free are great concepts but what is your business plan for the future?

Good question. We're still working on that. For MalaysiaVotes.com, we have some funding from the online news site project but just enough to pay us a very minimum allowance, and to cover our expenses to cover the general elections.

For transparency purposes, can you reveal your financial backers?

At this moment in time, both Cindy and I are contractually bound not to reveal who our financial backers are, unless they themselves decide to reveal their identities. We can only tell you that they are Malaysian investors who do not belong to any political party or government agency or NGO.

It is worth nothing, though, that as editors, both Cindy and I have control over editorial content, direction and policy. That's in our contract, too, because both of us, and our financiers are committed to editorial independence. We would ask readers to judge us by the quality of our journalism and by the journalistic standards of fairness, factual accuracy, accountability and balance.