Press and Corporate Reputation: Factors Affecting Biasness of Business News Reporting in Malaysia

In Malaysia, media bias has always been a hot debated issue. The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition often portrays itself as an advocate of press freedom while the masses often feel otherwise as media organisations are either directly or indirectly owned by component parties of the Barisan Nasional. Readers therefore commonly accuse these organisations of practising media control although the latter often maintains that they are free from external factors or from governmental control. Till date, researches about media biasness have only studied the effects of media biasness on corporate reputations but not about the factors associated to such biasness and are often done within Western contexts. This paper fills these gaps by examining the links between the personal interest of a journalist and their level of compliance with the National Union of Journalists’ Code of Conduct, audience pressure, political interests, and the biasness of business news reporting in Malaysia.