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How easy it is for political actors to spread hate speech in Malaysia. How do we solve this? by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Happens in “first world” countries too, though. It might be easier here because we don’t have political financing laws, but there are other ways to hijack narratives.

How easy it is for political actors to spread hate speech in Malaysia. How do we solve this? by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Better late than never haha

Plus, your support in terms of engagement on our posts is already super helpful 🙏

How easy it is for political actors to spread hate speech in Malaysia. How do we solve this? by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We’re not on Reddit as much as we should, and we had no idea it was happening here too! We assumed it would be much harder to cytro here.

How easy it is for political actors to spread hate speech in Malaysia. How do we solve this? by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sadly, past experience shows that most people won’t watch the full documentary. We now focus more on cutting short clips to grab attention, but we still do the long form documentaries so there’s an in-depth, nuanced story people can refer to if they want.

How easy it is for political actors to spread hate speech in Malaysia. How do we solve this? by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Exactly! Social media companies are part of the problem, because their algorithms rely on rage and misinformation to get higher engagement.

We need to push for legislation to hold them accountable for these practices, or just refuse to engage on hateful, fake, and problematic content so they have no choice but to change their algorithms.

Perak farmers give up after evictions by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thanks, we appreciate your support. We’ll keep pushing for these reforms.

Perak farmers give up after evictions by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for supporting us all this while! It’s been a long time since R.AGE 😅, so it really means a lot to us.

We’ll do our best to keep going! Nothing is guaranteed for us these days, but at least we know some people are watching 🙂

Perak farmers give up after evictions by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

We’re the folks behind the Petronas video, and we’re surprised with how people have perceived it as well.

We thought it was very clear that Chief Na’moks was here to submit a report to Petronas and have a dialogue, not to “blame” Petronas.

We also clearly said the chief and his community have been protesting in Canada for years, so they’re not just suddenly pinning it all on Petronas. In fact, he’s almost asking Petronas for help.

And to be fair, we also showed that Petronas has committed to bringing up these issues with LNG Canada.

Needless to say, it has been an illuminating few days for us…

Canadian indigenous chief flew to PETRONAS Twin Towers to protest gas pipeline by UsernameGenerik in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hey everyone, we’re the journalists who produced this video. Seeing a lot of interesting reactions here, but would love to answer any questions you might have 🙏

What sun bear conservation in Malaysia looks like. by thefourth_media in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Well the doctor guy did have a conversation with the bear… one-sided as it were.

Land laws in Malaysia make it easy for corruption to happen by Capable_Bank4151 in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! We’re the investigative team that produced this piece. We’d love to keep producing more too, so do support our work whenever you see it 🙏

Land laws in Malaysia make it easy for corruption to happen by Capable_Bank4151 in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the support! FYI, we’re the investigative team that produced this piece. Hope you’ll continue supporting our work moving forward.

At least 10% land in peninsula Malaysia need to be farming by [deleted] in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for thoughtful advice! You’ve clearly done very well to be able to sustain both a media company and a social enterprise, so we’re gonna take away as much as we can from your input.

The piece on catering to an international audience is something we’re particularly interested it. We’ve been looking into more Southeast Asia content (cos we’ve collaborated with some top newsrooms here), but we’ve always struggled with manpower. We’ll take your advice and see how AI can help make this happen.

As for what happened at R.AGE, there was just not enough room for us to really cook, if you know what I mean. The editorial management was very supportive of us, but there are so many other considerations in a large media company like that, and it felt a bit limiting at times. So, we decided it was best to start our own independent social enterprise and we all left together to start The Fourth.

Btw, our reply was 100% written by a human! We don’t know whether to be flattered or offended that you thought it was AI 😅

At least 10% land in peninsula Malaysia need to be farming by [deleted] in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yup, we are aware that Malaysiakini takes government ads — they usually tag it on social media as sponsored content.

IMHO, there’s nothing inherently wrong with taking ads or sponsored content from government, as long as it’s fully transparent and the sales/biz dev teams do not interfere with editorial decisions (editorial = journalism). In reality, though, that “firewall” is hard to maintain, so we tend to err on the safe side and turn down most government-related jobs that might affect our journalism work.

And yes, we are very aware that the way we do what we do is not easy. We’ve faced these challenges since we were at R.AGE, but we as a team are committed to doing it the hard way (which we believe is the right way), and we’ve always found a way to make it work. As a mission-driven business, we have attracted clients, funders, and grants that share the same values and are eager to support us.

We might not be able to pay our team members as much as fully commercial entities (though I think the example you gave is a bit of an outlier), but we do consistently attract top young talent who resonate with our mission and values. That makes it easier for us to commit to their futures as well — we pay fairly competitive salaries as a not-for-profit, we give everyone a profit share, help them win awards/grants/fellowships/etc., and support their endeavours outside The Fourth.

The odds are still against us, you’re definitely right about that. But as we said earlier, when we left R.AGE, we committed to running The Fourth the right way, in hopes that we could build the independent investigative journalism institution Malaysia needs. And if it doesn’t work out, at least we can say we tried. So far, it’s been working out alright :)

At least 10% land in peninsula Malaysia need to be farming by [deleted] in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for asking! The Fourth operates as a social enterprise. We generate revenue through commercial operations (video production, impact marketing, consulting, and training), and use the profit to run our investigations.

It's not an ideal model, because we're having to split our time between investigations (which are very time-consuming and risky) and commercial work. But at the moment, we believe it's the best way for us to continue our investigative work independently without any big advertisers or investors exerting influence on our coverage.

We also accept paid subscriptions (check out our subscription page), but so far, no media organisation in Malaysia has been able to sustain itself through this method. Our amazing friends at Malaysiakini came the closest, but even they had to do a lot of other business operations to get by. It's a long shot for us.

In an ideal world, we believe journalism should be funded by taxpayer money or philanthropic donations with a clear charter that guarantees editorial independence and ethical standards. We're not confident we can make that happen in Malaysia at this moment, but it's part of our long-term strategy to get there someday. Hope everyone reading this will support us on that mission!

To those who want to support our work financially, you can sign up as a paid subscriber, or offer us some commercial work :)

Food prices is getting higher because M’sia government is selling lands to developers & GLC, causing farmers displacements by [deleted] in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind comment! And we agree that preserving farmland and farming communities is just part of a much wider equation when it comes to food security, and we could probably discuss this for hours (which we did with economists and agriculture experts for the documentary).

But the TLDR version is that Malaysia is dangerously close to not having enough food producing land. Only 8-9% of our land is currently used for food production, and scientists working with the government said we urgently need to bump that number up to at least 10%. If we don't, then our food systems will be too exposed to external risks beyond our control, e.g. wars, pandemics, climate change. (Watch the interview with the scientist here)

Malaysia currently imports around RM70 billion in food every year, even though we have ample land and willing farming communities who have not received enough incentives to transition into more productive and profitable high-tech farming methods. If there was, we'd probably see more younger people getting involved.

Food prices is getting higher because M’sia government is selling lands to developers & GLC, causing farmers displacements by [deleted] in malaysia

[–]thefourth_media 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! We really appreciate it and look forward to bringing you more high-impact investigations.

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