COMMENT | Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil has less to do after “digital” was stripped from his ministry and “communications” remains his only portfolio. Perhaps that’s why he has taken to drawing up a code of ethics for journalists.

Incredibly, he took the rather draconian step of specifying that the ministry’s code, not the industry’s, would be used for press accreditation, a thinly disguised threat to the press to behave or else.

That’s rather inappropriate of PKR loyalist Fahmi, an engineer turned writer and actor who was deeply involved in social activism previously.

While Fahmi’s code of conduct seems a copy of the industry’s code of 1989, there are very significant differences.

To examine those is not the aim or the realm of this article, except to say that Fahmi has no business as communications minister - and therefore a conflicted party - to draw up a code of ethics for the media.

As a government representative who wants to suppress bad press about his government, he is biased...