Prioritising vaccination for media practitioners the right move - Wan Saiful

KUALA LUMPUR: The government's decision in prioritising media practitioners for COVID-19 vaccination is the right move to ensure they can carry out their duties with more confidence under the challenging pandemic situation, said Bersatu Information chief Datuk Wan Saiful Wan Jan.

He said that as many media practitioners braved the pandemic to bring verified news, it was only appropriate that they be given the recognition and appreciation by being placed as frontliners, thus giving them the priority for the vaccination.

"This shows the concern of YB Khairy Jamaluddin (National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme Coordinating Minister) and the Perikatan Nasional (PN) government towards media practitioners, who play crucial roles daily in ensuring accurate information is disseminated to the public.

"The services provided by journalists in disseminating the latest information to the public cannot be denied. Without journalists, it's impossible for important news and information to be disseminated nationwide speedily, including news on the ongoing pandemic," he said in a statement yesterday.

As a sign of the PN government's appreciation for journalists and in conjunction with the National Journalists' Day on Ma 29, Wan Saiful hoped that the vaccination process for media practitioners could be completed soon.

"We are still in the midst of celebrating the National Journalists' Day and well done to YB Khairy Jamaluddin, who announced a few days ago that he had received the names of almost 6,000 media practitioners that will be included in the list of vaccine recipients in the near future," he said.

On Thursday (May 27), Khairy said that 5,867 media practitioners from 114 registered media agencies would start receiving appointment dates for their COVID-19 vaccine jabs beginning from the first week of next month.

-- BERNAMA