BERNAMA

The Malaysian National News Agency, known as Bernama, is the country’s national news agency, established by Act of Parliament in 1967 and operational from May 1968. It supplies domestic and international news to public and private media organisations, maintains bureaux in every Malaysian state and stations correspondents and stringers in a number of foreign capitals. Beyond the newswire it operates Bernama TV and Bernama Radio, and since March 2020 has run MyCheck Malaysia, a fact-checking initiative.

Media assets

News agency: Bernama

Television: Bernama TV

Radio: Bernama Radio

Ownership and governance

Bernama is a state-owned statutory body established under the Bernama Act 1967, revised in 1990 and amended in 2025, and sits within the portfolio of the Ministry of Communications, which took its present form when the Ministry of Communications and Digital was divided in December 2023.

Its governance structure is mixed by statutory design, and this is the feature that distinguishes it from a government department such as RTM.

The Supervisory Council has five members appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. Under section 7 of the Act these comprise a High Court judge, appointed in consultation with the head of the judiciary, who presides as President; one representative of the Government of Malaysia; one representative of Malaysian newspapers; a university Vice-Chancellor; and a further member. Its statutory functions include considering complaints from newspaper, radio or television subscribers alleging that Bernama has failed to comply with the objects or principles laid down in the Act, and considering matters referred to it by the Board. The current Council is presided over by Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Azhar Abdul Hamid and includes the Communications Ministry Secretary-General, a university Vice-Chancellor and two senior media editors.

The Board of Governors manages the agency and comprises an independent chairman together with representatives of government and of subscribing media organisations, with alternate members also appointed under the Act. Members serve terms not exceeding three years and are eligible for reappointment. The 2025 amendment expanded representation to electronic and digital media organisations for the first time, bringing digital news outlets into the governance structure.

Both leadership positions were renewed during the review period. Wong Chun Wai was reappointed Chairman of the Board of Governors and Azhar Abdul Hamid appointed President of the Supervisory Council, both with the consent of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, for terms running from 1 September 2025 to 31 August 2027. Wong, a National Journalism Laureate, was first appointed Chairman on 1 September 2023.

Nur-ul Afida Kamaludin was formally appointed Chief Executive Officer in February 2024, having previously served as Editor-in-Chief and assumed CEO duties following her predecessor’s retirement. She remained in post through 2026. Arul Rajoo Durar Raj serves as Editor-in-Chief.

The statutory structure creates formal institutional distance from direct ministerial administration. Bernama has a Board containing media-industry representation, widened in 2025, and a separately constituted, judicially chaired Supervisory Council with a defined complaints jurisdiction. These arrangements do not eliminate government influence: appointments to both bodies are made through the constitutional appointment process on government advice, government representation on both is substantial, and no protection against removal or independent nominating process was identified. But the architecture is materially different from that of a broadcaster administered as a department of the executive, and that difference is central to the classification.

Source of funding and budget

Bernama receives substantial federal financing and also generates substantial commercial income, and the balance between them determines its classification.

The Federal Expenditure Estimates for 2026 record activity 020800, Pertubuhan Berita Nasional Malaysia, at RM72,602,300 for 2026, against RM71,753,000 for 2025, an increase of about 1.2%. The entire sum appears under object code 40000, grants and fixed charges. Unlike RTM, whose allocation is broken into emoluments, supplies and assets against 4,305 established federal positions, Bernama receives a single grant and carries no federal establishment posts, reflecting its statutory-body status. Development funding is recorded separately under project 06500, with RM7,550,000 allocated for 2026 against a revised RM4,750,000 for 2025, within a total project value of RM50.3 million.

Bernama publishes audited financial statements, which are tabled before Parliament and subject to Auditor-General scrutiny. Its 2023 annual report and financial statements were tabled in November 2025, and its 2024 accounts were subject to Auditor-General review.

Those accounts show that the federal grant does not constitute a predominant share of the agency’s income. For 2022, total revenue was approximately RM120.78 million, against a government operating grant of RM55.52 million and subscription income of approximately RM44.97 million. The grant therefore accounted for roughly 46% of total revenue, below the 50% threshold the State Media Matrix applies to predominant state funding.

Two caveats belong on that finding. Bernama’s subscribers include federal ministries, agencies and state governments, and the Matrix counts state advertising and indirect state support toward the funding threshold; a breakdown of subscription income by public and private subscriber would refine the calculation and could move the state-derived share upward. And the ratio is drawn from 2022, while the grant has since risen to RM72.6 million against commercial revenue whose trajectory is not established. The funding condition should be re-examined against each new set of audited accounts.

On the evidence available, the Matrix’s predominant-state-funding condition is not met.

Editorial independence

The evidence runs in both directions, and both sides bear on the classification.

Bernama’s statutory objects and corporate commitments include providing news that is accurate, fast, fair and balanced, and its customer charter provides for prompt correction of reporting errors. In August 2026 the Chief Executive Officer publicly stated that credible media must remain independent, that media must ask necessary questions, that journalism should be critical without prejudice, and that editorial judgement, accuracy, ethics and human accountability must remain central as artificial intelligence is adopted. In February 2025, addressing the OANA Executive Board Meeting hosted by Bernama, she framed the agency’s commitments in terms of freedom of expression, ethical reporting and equitable news dissemination, and pointed to MyCheck Malaysia as its verification arm.

Against that, interviews conducted for SMM with Malaysian media experts in early 2024 and May 2025 describe output generally favourable to the government, and emphasise the agency’s structural position as a primary content supplier to national outlets, many of which republish its material with minimal modification. That gives Bernama’s framing decisions reach across the domestic media system rather than merely within its own audience.

The Supervisory Council provides a statutory complaints route and is chaired by a serving High Court judge. SMM identified no published case in which the Council has intervened to protect newsroom independence or to address political editorial interference. Its practical effectiveness as an editorial safeguard therefore remains difficult to assess; the absence of an identified case is not evidence that the mechanism is dormant.

On the available evidence, Bernama is best understood as a formally arm’s-length public institution whose editorial independence is compromised in practice, rather than as a newsroom directly administered by the executive.

Accountability and the Malaysian Media Council

The Malaysian Media Council Act came into force on 14 June 2025, and the Council opened its complaints mechanism on 22 January 2026. Bernama’s Chief Executive Officer sits on the Council’s board as one of two government representatives, alongside RTM’s Director-General. Bernama itself was not listed among the Council’s organisational members as of August 2026, and the Council has declined complaints concerning non-member organisations, so its complaints mechanism does not provide an external accountability route specific to Bernama. The agency instead retains its statutory Supervisory Council.

AI and digital policy

Bernama is among the more active adopters of artificial intelligence in Malaysian media, and its activity extends beyond its own newsroom into industry-wide training.

In February 2025 its Centre of Excellence ran an “AI in the Newsroom” workshop with Huawei and REDtone involving 40 senior editors from major media outlets, and the Chief Executive Officer subsequently reported that more than 100 media professionals had been trained under the initiative, with further sessions planned across states and agencies. The Centre’s 2026 programme includes courses on AI for newsroom operations, AI-powered content creation and editorial automation, AI transcription and smart journalism tools, and AI for digital content production. Bernama has also worked with Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin on an analytics system and a reader-facing chatbot.

The agency has paired adoption with stated limits. In August 2026 the Chief Executive Officer said that AI adoption must not displace editorial judgement, accuracy, ethics or human accountability.

SMM identified no publicly accessible Bernama-wide policy specifying rules for generative artificial intelligence, synthetic media, verification, human review or disclosure of AI-generated journalism to subscribers and audiences.

Classification rationale

Bernama is reclassified from State-Controlled to Captured Public (CaPu) for 2026.

The funding condition for State-Controlled is not met. Audited financial reporting for 2022 places the federal operating grant at approximately RM55.52 million against total revenue of RM120.78 million, roughly 46%, below the Matrix’s 50% threshold, with subscription income of approximately RM44.97 million forming the largest non-grant component. The 2026 grant of RM72.6 million and RM7.55 million development allocation are substantial but cannot be converted into a proportion without corresponding revenue figures. Bernama therefore has a genuine, if not autonomous, commercial revenue base.

Governance is state-influenced but not directly administered. Bernama is state-owned and its Board and Supervisory Council are appointed through the constitutional process on government advice, with substantial government representation. But it possesses the institutional layer that the Captured Public category presupposes: a founding statute, a Board including subscribing media organisations and, since the 2025 amendment, electronic and digital media, and a five-member Supervisory Council chaired by a serving High Court judge with jurisdiction over subscriber complaints. It is not administered as a department of a ministry.

Editorial independence is compromised in practice. The agency’s formal mandate commits it to accurate, fair and balanced reporting, its customer charter requires prompt correction, and its current leadership has publicly defended editorial independence and critical journalism. Set against that, SMM interview evidence and independent assessment describe output favourable to the government, and no safeguard has been demonstrated to function as a check: the Supervisory Council’s complaints jurisdiction has produced no identified case bearing on editorial direction, and the Malaysian Media Council provides no route in respect of Bernama.

That combination, a publicly constituted institution with formal autonomy and safeguards, a mixed revenue base below the state-funding threshold, and editorial independence that the safeguards do not deliver, is what the Captured Public category exists to describe.

Two points are recorded for the next cycle. The reclassification reflects evidence newly available to SMM rather than an institutional change in 2026.

August 2026