PUTRAJAYA, Dec 5 — Digital Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil today said he is personally in favour of media freedom.

But he also stressed that he is also committed to safeguarding the welfare of journalists and is open to the establishment of a media council that has been raised by his past Pakatan Harapan (PH) colleague.

"I have a lot of friends who are media practitioners but it’s not about friendship, it’s about professionalism and about ensuring freedom of speech for media practitioners.

"And also to look at other aspects, not only in terms of profession but also I’m concerned about the welfare of journalists and it’s something I’m willing to look into, even engage with media organisations,” he told a press conference after clocking in to work for the first time this morning.

"To me, I need to understand the full picture. If you were to ask me again next week I might have more to say,” he added.

The idea to set up a media council had been discussed back in 2019 when Gobind Singh Deo was minister of communications and multimedia, before the collapse of the PH government.

Gobind had announced the formation of a pro-temp committee to create the self-regulatory media council in January 2020.

The pro-tem committee had submitted its findings and draft Bill to the ministry during Perikatan Nasional’s tenure in 2020 but the subsequent ministers Datuk Seri Saifuddin Abdullah and Tan Sri Annuar Musa did not make any decisions on the matter.