Free Malaysia Today (FMT) is an independent, bilingual news online portal with content, in both English and Bahasa Malaysia (Malay), with a focus on Malaysian current affairs, published since 2009. It is one of Malaysia's most accessed news sites with monthly visits of 11.83 million.
Origins and early history
Free Malaysia Today emerged from the aftermath of the 1990s Reformasi period in Malaysian history, during which Malaysia's government, under Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, attacked various journalistic media in response to their efforts to investigate the government—particularly its prosecution of Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.
At that time (and reportedly as recently as 2013) most of Malaysia's mainstream media—including principal newspapers and the country's four main TV stations—were heavily dominated by ownership of, or affiliation with, Malaysia's ruling long-time ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) party ("BN") and its coalition. This led to public concerns that objective media coverage of political issues was not happening.
During this period of BN-party media domination and suppression (coincidentally during the rise of the World Wide Web), several prominent online media sites emerged in Malaysia—featuring news, commentary and investigative journalism—including Malaysia Today, Malaysian Mirror, Malaysian Insider, and the Nut Graph. These sites were not subject to the same restrictive laws and regulation as mainstream media, enabling greater editorial freedom for the online media.
Among these new sites was FreeMalaysia.com—particularly noted for its aggressive exposés of alleged corruption in Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's administration. FreeMalaysia.com was then accused by the government of being a threat to "national security." The site eventually discontinued operations, but has been described as the "predecessor" of Free Malaysia Today.
Free Malaysia Today launched in November 2009 with several veteran news media figures, most notably Mohsin Abdullah (former news editor of NTV7, and contributor to MySinchew and Malaysian Insider.)
The publication was intended to serve as a general news site, with Malaysian news and commentary, as well as articles on world news, lifestyle and sports.
Content
While Malaysian politics takes up a big part of its content, the portal has in recent times been focusing on other topics of interest including the state of the economy, property, education as well as legal and social issues. It has a line-up of columnists made up of academics, diplomats, professionals and veteran journalists.
In archiving its web pages, the United States Library of Congress notes that the site "includes coverage of [the Malaysian territories of] Sabah and Sarawak (Borneo)."
Format
For nine years since its launch in 2009, the website followed a simple top-down format, with the "FMT News" app available on Google Play and App Store. On 31 August 2018, it launched a new design with larger font, in a break from its previous style, with larger pictures and more stories placed in prominent positions.
FMT also has an RSS Feed, with approximately 168 posts/week, according to the "Sabah Media" blog
Readership
In 2018, Eliza Ezzauddin Hussein, on the Communication and Media Studies faculty of Universiti Teknologi Mara in Malaysia, did an academic study of the readers of Free Malaysia Today ("FMT") and its principal rival, Siakap Keli ("SK") -- based on a survey of approximately 400 readers of the two outlets' Facebook sites. Hussein reportedly found that—in a survey responded to mostly by women aged 26 to 40, predominantly Malays with a bachelor's degree, and mostly students—the FMT readers' ethnicity tended to be 44% Malay and 31% [Malaysian] Chinese. It further found that the FMT readers were more highly educated (noting that 91% of them "have bachelor and master degree"), and most (69%) were working. She found FMT readers more open to comment, and to participation in public discussions on social media, than SK readers.
Election coverage
2013 general election
Malaysia' 2013 general election ("GE13"), held on 5 May 2013, was a pivotal event for Malaysia's online media, including Free Malaysia Today—serving to bring Malaysia's online media into a mainstream role in Malaysia's media community.
During the official two-week campaign, Malaysia's three largest, most-influential, online-only news websites -- Malaysiakini, The Malaysian Insider and Free Malaysia Today -- experienced millions of page views per day.