The Malaysian Insider to cease operations from midnight tonight

After eight years, The Malaysian Insider (TMI) will cease operations beginning tomorrow.

The Edge Media Group, which owns the online news portal, said the shutdown was due to commercial reasons.

Below is the full statement that was posted on TMI today:

Goodbye readers from near and far, and those reading us in Malaysia despite the government block.

The Edge Media Group has decided to shut down The Malaysian Insider from midnight today, for commercial reasons. Perhaps it is fitting that we go offline at the start of the Ides of March.

I hope we have served you well since our first day of going live on February 25, 2008. And I hope others will continue to serve you in our absence.

We worked as impartial journalists to inform Malaysians and other readers so that they make informed decisions. We worked to make all voices heard in this marketplace of ideas.

But our work in The Malaysian Insider has now come to an end in a Malaysia that more than ever requires more clarity, transparency and information.

All said and done, I want to thank everyone of you in Malaysia, around the world, and those who have been with The Malaysian Insider from day one until now for your support, well wishes and criticism during these fantastic eight years and 18 days of The Malaysian Insider.

I won't put down my pen, I won't lay down my camera, I won't shut up and I won't be blinkered or turn a deaf ear to what goes on in Malaysia and the world. And I urge all of you to do the same.

And I shall always be the biggest fan of this news portal called The Malaysian Insider.

Goodbye.

The Editor

* Jahabar Sadiq runs The Malaysian Insider until tonight.

On its eighth year anniversary, the TMI website was blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) over a report it published that same day concerning Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

The report "Enough proof to charge Najib over SRC, says MACC oversight committee" had quoted an anonymous panel member of the MACC, of which the commission vehemently denied saying.

Subsequently, Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak stated that TMI had been blocked by MCMC because it had 'flouted the country's laws' and carried articles which 'could confuse the public'.

The minister, however, denied his involvement in the blockage.