Ibrahim Ali enggan menerima penjelasan The Star bahawa tindakan akhbar itu menyiarkan gambar masakan babi (BBQ pork ribs) suatu kesilapan yang tidak disengajakan.
“Kita semua tahu pengarang The Star siapa,” tambah presiden Perkasa itu yang masih belum berpuashati dengan permohonan maaf yang disiarkan pada mukasurat 3 edisi Jumaat [Ogos 12] suratkhabar berkenaan.
Dalam pada itu, ketua Pemuda Perkasa Irwan Fahmi Ideris telah merobek-robekkan senaskhah suratkhabar Star dengan keris tatkala berdemo petang semalam.
Irwan dan koncu-koncunya kemudian membakar akhbar tersebut beserta ular getah.
TUDUHAN ANTI ISLAM, ANTI MELAYU
Berdasarkan pengalaman blogger ini sebagai seorang bekas wartawan Star, setahunya saya:
Sisipan (pullout) adalah diterbitkan sepanjang tahun. Tema-tema yang popular ialah Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, X’mas, Tahun Baru Cina, cuti sekolah panjang dan sebagainya.
Gambar masakan babi yang begitu mengguris hati ahli-ahli Perkasa telah dimuatkan dalam sisipan Panduan Makan — pilihan-pilihan tatkala menjamu selera di luar rumah (dining out).
Muka depan sisipan tersebut diberi tajuk ‘Ramadan delights’.
Saban tahun The Star akan memperolehi keuntungan yang amat lumayan daripada edaran sisipan-sisipan yang memuatkan iklan berbayar, iaitu ‘advertorial’ (advertisement + editorial) yang disediakan oleh Supplements Desk. (Seksyen-seksyen lain suratkhabar — Sports Desk / Sukan, Entertainment Desk / Hiburan, News Desk / Berita, umpamanya).
Walaupun Supplements Desk dikepalai seorang pengarang, namun seksyen ini diwajibkan berhubung rapat dengan bahagian Pemasaran (marketing) dan Pengiklanan (advertising).
Profit motive/mencari keuntungan … “advertising is king” … merupakan faktor utama dalam menentukan kandungan sisipan.
Setakat mana sesebuah peniagaan itu – misalannya restoran (Dining Out), kedai bunga (Hari Valentine), jualan cenderahati (Hari Guru), dsb – diberi ruang bergantung kepada kos/berapa mahalnya iklan yang ditempah.
Caj yang dikenakan bagi iklan dikira mengikut saiz (muka penuh, separuh halaman, suku halaman, dsb), warna ataupun hitam-putih, dan mana letaknya (contohnya jika ditempatkan di halaman kanan akan lebih mahal berbanding halaman kiri).
SIAPA YANG BUAT SILAP?
Kerja menyiapkan sisipan dipertanggungjawabkan kepada:
- Pemberita yang pada lazimnya akan menulis rencana mengikut press release ataupun temuramah dengan bos syarikat/pegawai perhubungan awam
. - Subeditor/copyeditor yang tugasnya menyunting artikel dan membuat page layout (susanan halaman)
. - Pengarang
. - Kakitangan bahagian pemasaran ataupun pengiklanan
SATU PENGAJARAN
Ketua pengarang kumpulan (EIC) suratkhabar dan pihak pengurusan atasan tidak akan menyelia dengan secara rapi atau hands on proses pembikinan sisipan kerana dianggap sebagai berita remeh-temeh. (Contohnya Wong Chun Wai hanya diperlu untuk menyemak dan meluluskan muka depan dan cerita-cerita politik yang hangat atau ‘sensitif’.) Biasanya sisipan tidak berkaitan dengan kerja seharian EIC.
Maka dari ini kita harus membuat kesimpulan bahawa agenda sulit atau provokasi yang didakwa Ibrahim Ali tidak munasabah.
Pokok pangkalnya sisipan berunsur bisnes bukan politik walaupun The Star bersikap cuai dan kurang peka apabila nampak seolah-olah mengesyorkan masakan babi sebagai hidangan buka puasa.
Namun begitu, hakikat sisipan ‘Ramadan delights’ yang ditujukan kepada umat Islam juga membayangkan orang Melayu sekarang dipandang sebagai mempunyai pendapatan serta kuasa beli yang tinggi.
Akhir kata, tidak masuk akal bahawa sebuah suratkhabar popular seperti The Star akan mahu menguji kesabaran pembaca setia — juga ‘pelanggan’ — dengan sewenang-wenangnya tanpa bersebab.
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Mutakhir: The Star membuat penjelasan serta memohon maaf sekali lagi.
Helen Ang 
It is not only PERKASA that is upset by the Star.
I and many others are upset.
It cannot be an oversight as claimed, not from a paper that has been established for many years and not during such climate. This can only be seen as a deliberate act of disrespect.
This is further evidenced by the feeble attempt of an apology. I do not believe the Star was sincerely in its apology.
It is the same as showing roast beef in a Hindu supplement.
Shame on the Star.
Dear Adait Aman,
I’ve seen some unintentional boo-boos before, like on one occasion — not Star tho’ — where a glitch led to captions being swapped, i.e. a group photo of women in their red baju kurung and selendang (can’t recall exactly if they were Mak Datin or Wanita Umno), and underneath it said something about delicious sotong swimming in chilli sauce.
The paper may be an established one but we can’t discount the possibility that the few staff involved could be inexperienced and clearly failed to make the connection between Chinese advertisers and the incongruous theme.
In the newsroom hierarchy, Supplements does not rank highly unlike say, the Newsdesk (esp. reporters covering PM) or the op-eds. Therefore the paper’s top management would never consider it a high risk section to step out of line, i.e. while political stories may cause an uproar, rarely do sports stories or Food stories hence the lack of close supervision of their content.
From
my experiencewhat I know, restaurants and other goods & services promotion pullouts are never handled by top editors with political ties (which is what I’ve tried to explain in my posting above), hence it’s hard to credit a deliberate political agenda to insult. Ignorance more like.Agree with you that it was as duh as showing roast beef in a Hindu supplement.
Out of curiosity, would you still find it offensive if non-halal restaurants were featured side by side in the same pullout (as if it was just an ordinary dining guide) but minus any emphasis or mention of a Ramadan special. Just asking so that I get an idea of where Muslims draw the line …
Last year I called up the Star to tell them not to assign Muslim writers to write on non-halal restaurants or non-halal food. They were doing that for several weeks.
Just to let you know Helen in Malaysia the Malays who are Muslims are very sensitive about pork or consuming pork. The Malay/Muslim might join his non-Muslim buddies for a beer but serve him pork and he can even kill you.
Of course I have seen some ‘sesat’ Malay/Muslim eat babi hutan. His reason? The babi was not as dirty as the ‘town’ babi!
Not true Helen. I know how these pages are prepared and published. The mistake was purposely done. In ebery maor newspaper in Malaysia, before the pages were okayed. they were supposed to be checked and checked again to make sure that they dd not contain sensitive issues or controversial subjects or contents that can hurt the business of the major advertisers. I have followed and scrutinised the Star, page by page, since the 80s and the paper has never failed to seize every chance to belittle Islam and the Malays. I can show copies of the Star which had done these.
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Hi, long time no hear. How are you? — Helen
@Hussain
I don’t read The Star, but i am interested to learn from you how ‘the paper has never failed to seize every chance to belittle Islam and the Malays’. Enlighten us, please.
Next time you read the Star, look for stories that made Muslims or Malays or Bumiputera look dumb. This happened especially when the Star operated under the previous MCA president. If a Malay husband whacked his wife, the Star will play it up whereas other paper treated it as another unfortunate family dispute. There are so many instances and I can show you one by one if you are willing to go through the old copies of the Star with me.
bersetuju dengan pendapat Hussin Rahman.
dapat diperhatikan, the Star selalu memaparkan berita yang ‘merendah – rendah’kan orang Melayu.
kadang – kala terasa seperti membaca akhbar keluaran DAP.
Maaf diterima, tapi seseorang patut dihukum. Ini akhbar utama. Tak ada toleransi untuk kesilapan seperti ini
Seems to me that as they said KDN/SPR accept 4 months old pendatangs to be a citizen/voters of Malaysia. Same as The Star, accept 4 months old pendatangs who dont know what Ramadan is to be their Pemberita, copywriter or whatever lah!
@Hussin, I think you should ariculate more on what you meant by “play it up”, and citation on “stories that made Muslims or Malays or Bumiputera look dumb”.
My impression toward newspaper like The Star is they hold a terribly politically correct stance while reporting besides the usual bias view towards opposition parties. Just like what Helen wrote, I want to know where Muslims like you draw the line.
ACCOUNTABILITY???
Tiada didalam kamus masyarakat Malaysia… :-P
Well.. it’s time for me (or perhaps Muslims) in Malaysia to consider boycott The Star..
Actually i thought I’m the only one who notice what Hussin Rahman mentioned above but seems that I’m not…
From now one.. NST is my choice for English paper..
byebye The Star..
Muslims/malays are so quick to get offended on things like this. You dont eat pork because of your religion, everyone else gets it, you on the other hand should get over it.
Its ok if you just want to tegur the star, tapi tak perlu la emotional sangat, its a small thing, its not like someone got killed or anything, or your right as a human being was violated.
I’m a muslim too and im pretty sure im more fundamentalist than your average Muslim. im not crying out bloody murder over a small thing like pork being advertised on paper, its not like they were recommending muslims to eat it.
Lets evaluate ourselves, if you’re the type that raises a fuss over pork advertised in the newspaper, but then would nod in silence when some imam/ulama says that its ok to kill a murtad, then you might be a hypocrite and perhaps… a tiny bit of an extremist.