While Bernama strives to relay fast and accurate information, we have had to grapple with challenges, probably, arising from our credible reputation.
Tonight, we had to lodge a police report over the spreading of false news through the short-message service (SMS) purportedly transmitted by Bernama.
The report was lodged by Bernama's technical department senior manager Abdul Halim Hafiz at Jalan Travers police station at 8.45pm tonight. The department supervises news flow on Bernama's SMS news service.
In his report, Abdul Halim said irresponsible elements had used Bernama's name to spread the false news that seven Barisan Nasional (BN) component parties would be holding press conferences to announce they were pulling out of the ruling coalition.
"I have checked Bernama's SMS news log for today and found no record of such an SMS sent," he said.
Bernama's SMS news service is only available to registered subscribers with the Maxis and Celcom cellular telephone networks through the SMS code 26822 and follows a pre-set format.
Information Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek described the act of spreading the rumour via SMS as irresponsible.
He said it showed that those responsible were prepared to lie in order to influence the people.
"This (the SMS message) is a big lie. They also gave the date for the component parties from Sabah and Sarawak to quit BN as today, which has turned out to be untrue," said Shabery.
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