A new twist to online news in Malaysia

It was recently reported that the popular online news portal, The Malaysian Insider (TMI) has been sold to The Edge Media Group (TEMG). However, the report did not divulge the details of the acquisition price or the percentage of the acquisition.

TMI which was established in 2008 by brother and sister team, Joan Lau and Leslie Lau has been rated as the second most popular online news portal in the country after Malaysiakini.

However, Joan and Leslie Lau walked out of the portal after the 13th General Election and went on to set up a new news portal, Malay Mail Online. TMI was in limbo when the entire team left to follow suit leaving only its CEO, Jahabar Sadiq to man the ship.

Jahabar was instrumental in keeping TMI afloat by quickly finding replacements from the New Straits Times with a team headed by crime editor, Lionel Morais. TMI then began a hiring spree and had revived its waning fortunes.

TMI offered free news coverage whilst Malaysiakini was a paid news portal. The other online news portals which have sprung up include theantdaily, which is owned by Clement Hii’s HCK Group and the older players are Free Malaysia Today and The Malaysian Chronicle.

TMI and other news portal were deemed to offer alternative views to those in the mainstream media which were perceived as being one sided to the government of the day. The results of the 13th General Election showed the opposition gaining much ground and this could be attributed to the rise of the online news portals.

These portals offered a forum for discussion of ideas that could not be discussed in the mainstream media. Opposition members were given a platform to air their views and these portals were used effectively as a viable alternative to mainstream media.

The owner of TMI is still unclear but according to industry sources the original owners were aligned to ECM Libra Chairman, Datuk Seri Kalimullah Hassan. It was alleged that the portal was later acquired by businessman, Jho Lo but the identity of the actual owner has always been kept in the dark.

“ Nobody actually knows the actual owners,” said an industry source who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Checks with the Companies Commission of Malaysia showed that the holding company of TMI, TMIDotCom Sdn Bhd had a paid up capital of RM2 and its shareholders were its CEO, Jahabar Sadiq and its former founder, Leslie Lau.

The entry of TEMG clears the air on the ownership of TMI but whom they bought it from is still unclear. In a short statement , TMI’s CEO Jahabar Sadiq said on the entry of TEMG, "that it shared the same ethos as TMI."

That remains to be seen if TMI continues with its hard hitting pieces or its tone would be somewhat neutralised. TEMG owns another news portal, FZ.com and it would be interesting to see if the media group rationalises its news portals under one entity.