KUALA LUMPUR: Confusion broke out earlier today when several local and international media outlets ran news flashes wrongly announcing that Datuk Seri Najib Razak has been granted house arrest.
The error appeared to stem from a news flash by international wire agency Reuters. At 9.48am, Reuters published a flash titled ‘Malaysia High Court judge orders Najib to be released from jail for home arrest’.
At that point, High Court judge Alice Loke Yee Ching was still reading out her ruling and had yet to deliver a verdict.
In her decision, Loke dismissed the former prime minister’s judicial review application to enforce a royal addendum that would have allowed him to complete his sentence under house arrest.
The Reuters news flash, however, was picked up by a host of media outlets, including Singapore’s Straits Times and Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.
The Singapore news outlet ran the item prominently on its front page for more than 20 minutes before issuing a correction.
“In an earlier version of this story, Reuters reported that the High Court judge ordered Najib to be released from jail for home arrest. Reuters has since issued a correction that the judge invalidated the royal order on Najib’s home arrest. We are sorry for the error,” read the correction.
Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching later took media outlets to task for the erroneous reports.
In a Facebook post, Teo said media organisations should compete on accuracy, not just speed.
“Let’s prioritise being right over being first,” she wrote.
Teo also shared screenshots of the incorrect headlines in her post.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
