Newspaper coverage on Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) in Berita Harian and Harian Metro / Siti Hajar Abd Aziz, Noor Mayudia Mohd Mothar and Shahril Anuar Abdul Ghalim

Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) is a programme launched by the government in year 2005 to target heroin addicts, but scepticism still prevails on this unorthodox treatment method. The public misconceived the treatment as just another alternative to meet the addiction habits. Question arose whether the media has given enough coverage to the programme and whether the newspapers have been supportive in term of writing style and the information offered in the news. Therefore, the paper will examine the contents of news on methadone as reported by Berita Harian and Harian Metro in year 2008 and 2009 to determine their level of support on the MMT programme. The study found that there is still a lack of coverage on the MMT programme by these newspapers where only 35 news articles on methadone were published by both newspapers throughout the two years. Although small in number, Berita Harian has focused their news to create awareness on the therapy drug, using the ministry representatives and health practitioners as the official sources. Harian Metro, however, preferred to represent methadone in the form of crime news, and using enforcement bodies as their sources. Therefore, methadone programme did suffer from this stereotype of news values practised by most tabloid newspapers. It is feared that associating methadone with crime and harmful drugs would create a perception that methadone is just another type of harmful drugs and not a therapy drug or substitution for the addicts.