Before I touch on The Star’s syok sendiri mafia, some Malaysiakini figures for comparison.
Malaysiakini senior executive in digital marketing, Sarimah Samad-Imran, recently informed potential advertisers that the portal had received 1,677,243 unique visitors on the day that Parliament was dissolved (3 April 2013).
Sarimah claimed Malaysiakini to have gotten 2,456,998 page views on the dissolution day.
On the eve of the Parliament dissolution, the pro-opposition site claimed to have had 2,397,359 page views, out of which 1,637,125 were unique page views. Making her sales pitch on the current attractiveness of Malaysiakini advertising space, Sarimah highlighted that their viewer numbers will keep on rolling, right up till polling day.
She also pointed out that the portal saw an increase in unique page views from 1,637,125 on April 2 to 1,677,243 on April 3 — a rise of 40,118 unique page views (translated as “unique visitors” by Malaysiakini‘s Sarimah) within the span of 24 hours.
According to the Alexa ranking on Internet traffic, Malaysia’s Top 10 most popular websites are: Facebook, Google.com.my, Google, YouTube, Blogspot, Yahoo!, Wikipedia, Blogger.com, Maybank2u and Mudah.my.
Malaysiakini is the country’s leading online media at No.13 while The Star (No.21) and Utusan (No.24) are not too far apart although a little distance behind the leader of the pack.
Facebook at No.1
Facebook is the number one website in Malaysia.
“Facebook is our biggest weapon. It’s still the main battleground,” DAP communications officer Medaline Chang told The Straits Times (Singapore) two days ago — see ‘Malaysian politicians go all a-Twitter‘ (ST, 7 April 2013).
The DAP has successfully made Facebook – which is the most widely used media and having both social reach as well as political activism hook-up – their “biggest weapon” and “main battleground”.
The Star‘s selected twits
A few days ago, I blogged ‘The Star promoting anti-BN twits who mock Najib‘.
The Star reporter responsible for the twits selection was Michelle Tam.
Michelle’s pro-opposition choices for her Parliament dissolution story were not an aberration but definitely conforming to The Star‘s pattern of bias.
Star studded with SABM
A few days ago, this same Michelle Tam was responsible for another Star article headlined ‘GE13: April 27 hot favourite for polling day’.
@AdrianNCF was among the twits that Michelle quoted for her April 4 writing on the topic of guessing the polling date.
Michelle chose to feature @AdrianNCF who is a Saya Anak Bangsa Malaysia and LoyarBurok. Adrian’s profile is that of Malaysian First (SABM is the Firsters Club).
As we know, SABM was founded by Haris Ibrahim.
In the same guess-the-polling-date Star story, Michelle also picked an NST reporter @akil_y and her Star colleague Regina Lee as the other Twitter personalities to be splashed on The Star pages.
Like the Selangor Times splashing the Jerusubang photos, The Star splashed the photo of its own staff Regina on its own pages.
The Star‘s self-indulgence is as great as the Selangor Times‘s syok sendiri. (Umno and MCA are practically invisible in the ST pages unless it’s negative news like the Khir Toyo and Ling Liong Sik corruption trials).
Twitter at No.12
From the Alexa ranking, we can see that Twitter is a very popular site – in twelfth spot – in Malaysia. This means that there are a lot of Malaysians tweeting.
In a corner of Jerusubang alone, there are already 63,381 twits.
So what kind of shoddy journalism is The Star‘s Michelle Tam churning out when she elects to quote her own office colleague for a story when there are hundreds of thousands of non-SABM twits out there to choose from?
Essentially, The Star with its reach to a 5.63 million audience is being used by the paper to promote a lopsided point of view of its opposition-inclined staff who are slanted to Jerusubang.
Starring role in Dapsterism
We’ve already seen evidence of the nascent ABU vigilantism.
Like ABU, Hannah Yeoh has sounded a similar warning. In her press statement yesterday (8 April 2013), she said:
“Our residents and supporters in Subang Jaya have been placed on high alert and will be monitoring the streets right up to polling day.”
When Hannah makes the following accusation against BN without any proof:
we most certainly hear the echoes of ABU in the threat that her camp “will not tolerate” unclean elections. What The Star is similarly promoting is a cyber lynch mob. The paper’s own NUJ president tweeted about Rosmah Mansor, calling her “Big Mama” and eliciting a “hu hu hu” from Hannah Yeoh.
The Star is allowing its network to foster the cult of Dapsterism.
DAP SuperCyber Bullies
You can see The Star reporter handles in the tweets screenshot above that are bandying my name, and they are the ones in the same loop as the DAP SuperCyber Bullies.
DAP makes no secret that Facebook is its “biggest weapon”. Doubtless Twitter is the DAP’s second biggest weapon, and both social media used extensively by their cyberbully legionnaires for spreading hatred and the most malicious fitnah (something they’re good at).
The Star’s agenda is discernible. In a previous article on the bludgeoning social media scene, all the politicians listed by the MCA-owned paper belong to DAP and PKR (see screenshot bottom of page). There is not a single MCA, Umno, Gerakan or MIC politician in the Star list.
This deliberate omission and commission by The Star is a trend over the last 5 years.
First-time voters
There are three million-plus young or first-time voters. Thanks to the sterling efforts of The Star, the opposition – especially the DAP in Johor – are now quite confident that they have the young urban electorate in their pocket.
About a month ago, I took a Twit Meter reading. MCA vice president Gan Ping Sieu who is also Deputy Youth Minister had 2,246 followers whereas Hannah Yeoh had 59,654 followers.
Today, Gan has 2,318 followers and Hannah has 63,381. Over the same period of time, Gan has increased his Twitter followers by a mere 72 but Hannah’s following has grown by 3,727.
If the social media is one of the electoral battlefronts, The Star has effectively given Pakatan the edge through its tireless promotion of the support structure (such as the network of pro-opposition twits) that harasses and poses a menace to the beleaguered critics of the DAP.
Helen Ang 
The whole Board of the Star and Wong Chun Wai should be sacked forthwith !
Obviously STAR had forgotten the govt ban on its publication during the ‘Lalang Ops’ in the late 80’s.
I hope Mr Wong Chun Wai is reading Helen’s blog now.
He should understand that UMNO has people as smart and as intuitive as Helen who are analysing every single article in the STAR.
re: “He should understand that UMNO has people as smart and as intuitive as Helen who are analysing every single article in the STAR.”
LOL. I may be conceited enough to let pass “people as smart and as intuitive as Helen” but let me state most categorically that I have nothing whatsover to do with Umno.
Just like, because in all the past elections I voted DAP doesn’t mean I have anything to do with DAP. I don’t.
The extent of my connection to BN is rakan seperjuangan in blogosphere who are considered either pro-Umno or Umno bloggers, and some of them list me their blogroll as “anti-Pakatan”.
And lately I’ve become a Mahathir watcher. He’s the weather vane as to the direction the wind blows.
The three main traffic feeders to this blog, aside from readers who access directly or via blogrolls, are Rockybru, Syed Akbar Ali and Gerakan Anti-PKR (GAP) and may explain somewhat the pro-establishment bent of the comments section.
In his press statement on the BN manifesto, Chua Soi Lek said that the DAP seeks to destroy the MCA.
As part of the 10 percent of the Chinese who does not support DAP, I have to be vigilant against The Jerusubang Star that is the breeding ground for the Red Guard vigilantes who similarly want to destroy any dissenters against their Tokong and Our Lady of Subang.
Just look at what they’re doing to Joceline Tan in cyberspace. I don’t intend to take their fitnah and their menace lying down. I am fighting back tooth and nail.
You should watch Daim too. He can be your alternate ‘weather vane’ if Dr M has a flu and he can’t speak. :)
I’m all ears.
He has been speaking ‘oracle’-ly targeted to the Chinese audience through all the Chinese print media but I don’t think they are registering anything that he says.
too bad for the Chinese community. they should listen to Daim more. but because they are now in this state of syiok sendiri, I doubt anyone can get to them in one piece.
Reblogged this on jiwa hamba.
The more I read about the Star – MCA stories.. the more I think they deserve to be bungkus-ed..
During the Aku Janji BN launch.. CSL really looked tak bermaya. Sudah kibar bendera putih ke?
Besides CSL, did the MCA rank-and-file turn up for the event?
most of those who showed up, they consisted mostly of Malays. in fact, I would venture to say that even the Indians outnumbered the Chinese that day. that says it all, isn’t it ?
Of all the MCA Presidents, all were easily accessible except the last 2. If these folks play exclusive, they should not be in politics. One dressed himself up in the finest red Mandarin silks to kow-tow to Lee Kuan Yew who ignored the MCA since 1963 !
The Star is condemning MCA to death by a thousand teeny weeny cuts. And I suppose the GE would be when MCA be put out of its’ misery.
What would be The Star‘s role following MCA’s demise?
The Star will continue its role as the mainstream mouthpiece of The DAP.
You see, The Star has never played any meaningful role for The MCA. So, in the event The MCA is sent packing by the voters, which I highlighted yesterday, it will be business as usual for The Star.
Backstabber in chief without a doubt currently. MSM & toned down version of the Rocket post GE.
BTW, with the H7N9 scare now in China, we have a virulent strain of flu as well here in Malaysia. First up, the Star was infected by the copy & paste flu last week when they did the GE pullout. Today, check out Star Metro pg 3;
P98 Gombak: Malay – 74%, Chinese/Others – 63%, Indian – 11%
That means there’s 148% of voters in P98, whatever that means. Seems like the calculators in Menara Star may be infected by their Penang counterparts. Or is it a “typo” this time?
Hahaha. They should go back to basics — use abacus.
how dare you ? we will sue you for this ! oops…………The Dear Leader speaking…..?
“U ulang, I saman!”.
and we will all receive letters from his lawyers soon. so scared.
I think this is what is termed as the Fifth Column.
LOL. Remember 5.63 million.
Helen, some of that 5.63 million buy it coz,
1. Starjob to cari kerja lain.
2. Biz section – lebih banyak info dari paper lain
3. So much paper for RM1.50. Jual surat khabar lama untung oooo
5 million plus strong column. Even Kim Jong Un would be terribly impressed.
I think the phrase “terribly impressed” (don’t forget the “wow”) is beginning to Pavlov on me. I’ll just burst out laughing from simply looking at it.
We should collect these favs in a forum posting soon.
where got 5 million ? 5 million readers okay la I believe. 5 million going to revolt ? they have the guts ?
My bad. Jong Un would be wowed gaga & terribly impressed by the numbers.
Now Helen, wipe that drool…
Btw, did you notice GPS was seated almost directly behind Tun Dr M during the Aku Janji unveiling on Saturday? He was smiling like a clam whenever the camera focused on Tun.
No, am not much of a TV viewer. I think it’s an inverse correlation to my preference for the written word, i.e. books and essays. Or maybe it’s just telling of my age that I do not belong to the digital generation.
It is too kind to call these folks as “vigilantes”. The election date is not yet even fixed but we have all sorts of army of thugs being mobilised. I have a bad feeling over these developments.
I sense that these mobilization of thugs are not so much to prevent phantom voters (if there are any) but to create a Malaysian Chinese Spring to topple the BN govt when, as expected, Pakatan fails in its bid to occupy Putrajaya in the 13 GE.
I am afraid, there will be chaos and street demos after the GE13 and the dapsters will be out in force on the streets to display their anger over “BN’s blatant cheating”. We had seen that in Sibu before.
Thanks. I’ll put this up shortly for discussion.
a Malaysian Chinese Spring… and the Malaysian Chinese will be the first and largest casualty. it is ironic that the Chinese have been the ones taunting the majority Malays all this while and yet there is this talk of a what ? a Malaysian Chinese Spring ?
Daim was correct in pointing out that the Chinese have become too emotional with regards to politics that they failed to realized that the majority of Malays and Indians and the Natives have had enough of them, yet they still live in this state of utter delusion thinking they are the ones calling others’ bluff.
speaking of a Malaysian Chinese Spring. if it indeed happens, it will only confirm the suspicions long held by the Malays, the Indians and other Natives that indeed, the Chinese are the 5th column.
TIJ,
In Penang, the Tokong already have these thugs ready. They have been raised in the pretext to serve as anti crime patrols. And almost 100% are Chinese while the application of non Chinese are rejected. In fact the Chinese recruited are only from one tribe – Dapters.
PDRM has been complaining about gangsters and criminals being inducted to these teams but Tokong has gone ahead despite all the protests. They behave like the Nazi Brown Shirts – Storm Troopers for the party instead of serving the people.
There are rumors that some of the triads are being mobilized to support DAP financially and physically. I can foresee that DAP thugs freely roaming the polling centers and key roads and highways in Penang, stopping people and demanding for ICs. They will attempt stop people from voting (Malays and Indian) and won’t even afraid of the cops.
What happened in Lunas in 2000 might repeat. I only hope that PDRM will be ready to face all these thugs and act firmly.
I have no doubt PDRM is well prepared and ready to act. in the event that this so called Chinese revolt does take place, for sure the Chinese will pay a heavy price.
it is basically a numbers’ game. if Malays, Indians, other Natives, if they come together to confront these thugs, they will have no more excuses to call the Malays racists. but I m not counting on this to happen. after all, they too have labelled Hindraf as racist. everyone is racist according to them. even Chinese who support BN are labelled as racist.
That includes other thugs who like to throw eggs, disrupt people’s ceramahs with loudhailers, throw stones, throw red paints, mat rempits etc. I know one particular party supporters, UM….which is popular for that :)
They’ve forgotten the ability of the Malays to react, very very violently, to any street demos by the dapsters and their cohorts.
The silent anger and rage is simmering amongs the Malays.
Sarang tebuan jangan dijolok!
Helen,
after all we know how the star played their role against their master to feed their enemy, it’s high time for the master who seems to be not capable to handle it to sell their rights.
probably UMNo will be interested to become the new master and hopefully, we can see changes in the star……
what say you….MCA?
there is no point in trying to Ubah The Star. dah tak boleh ubah lagi dah. just sell it to the next highest bidder and recoup the investment.
Tell a Malay; You tak tau sembahyang ka? He might laugh.
Tell a tak sembahyang, hard drinking Malay you makan khinzir, you lose your teeth at the very least.
Tell a Malay ,’pi balik kampong tanam jagung’, you might lose everything!
So be very careful what any non-Malaiyoo say in a Malaiyoo’s face in any circumstances.
what’s with this Hua Yong ? he seems to be making quite a name for himself in pro opposition blogs. I just read this at Ellese A’s blog. he’s been very aggressive and getting personal too.
Okay. Will pop over and have a look. Thanks.
http://right2respond.blogspot.com/2012/07/blogs-that-cannot-tolerate-dissenting.html
I was surprised when I read that the Star was doing business with the Singapore Government not too long ago. Lee Kuan Yew had always ignored the leadership of the MCA since 1963 and wrote uncomplimentary things about them.
After the BN as led by the UMNO with the 14 component parties is returned to Putrajaya, the whole Board of the Star and Wong Chun Wai should willingly resign or be sacked forthwith.
In this ulitmate battle for the survival of the BN and Malaysia, there should be no room for those who speak with forked tongues !
Hi Helen,
as a student not yet able to vote (but soon to be able to in the next GE) that has been surrounded by pro-pakatan voices, I’m rather surprised to find an english educated person supporting BN (This isn’t an attack on your character or anything, mind you)
My interest in philosophy has led me to the point where I think I should be examining both sides of any debate/argument, but in the case of our government, I haven’t been able to find a good argument in favor for BN from an English source. (my Malay is rather terrible.)
So I was hoping if you could explain a few things to me as insights…
1) You used to vote for DAP, why did you decide to support BN now?
It seems that I don’t know a lot of people who are like you. As a city kid, most of the modern Malay, chinese or indian friends I meet tend to have a negative perception of the government. Surely you have a good reason for deciding otherwise?
2) I read that you have plenty to criticize about The Star as “secret DAP supporters”, but 99% of my peers do not recognize that. In fact, they believe that everything The Star seems to say is pro-MCA to some extent. Perhaps we’re not reading in between the lines as you seem to be doing, but it seems to be “doing it’s job” for the MCA in that sense; By constantly telling us how terrible and disunited the opposition leaders are and how amazing CSL’s leadership skills are, then isn’t the Star “doing it’s job” by promoting MCA to the unsuspecting public?
..
3) Following from the 2nd question..
IF The Star “made you happy” in a sense that they are more active in promoting MCA and BN, wouldn’t it mean that you somehow desire the most popular newspaper in Malaysia to be very very biased?
What about those who would argue that tabloids should be given whatever freedom they have?
4) You seem to have a lot of qualms with DAP leaders criticizing BN members and leaders alike on the internet, hence labeling them “cyber-bullies”
But seeing as the internet can be accessed by any leader from any political party, why do you only target DAP leaders when the people from BN have an equal opportunity to “counter” the cyber threat?
I know that many PKR supporters are rather dogmatic and bigoted in their social media dealings, but equally, I’ve seen pro-BN supporters say really darn things in the social media as well!
As for your criticism of Hannah Yeoh’s “false accusation”, are you certain that BNKJ hasn’t done anything to provoke the accusation?
In other words, do you have proof that she doesn’t have proof?
Granted that twitter has a short character limit, I doubt she’d be able to elaborate on what “dirty campaigning” she was talking about.
That being said, I’m not very politically aware and am reasoning from a layman’s PoV. So I’d love to hear what you have to say about all this.
In all honesty, I really have never found an English speaking BN supporter.
re: “In other words, do you have proof that she doesn’t have proof?”
She was the one who asserted that the BN Kelana Jaya ‘stole’/removed the DAP banners and flags. If she’s making the accusation, then it is she who has to prove her assertion.
e.g. Let’s say I accuse you of defacing a Najib billboard. Then I’d have to prove my allegation that you did so.
Surely a third party looking on is not going to demand “Does Decky have the proof that Helen Ang doesn’t have the proof (that Decky defaced the Najib billboard)?”
Spot on!
I realized the mistake earlier on.
While I agree that the burden of proof is on the one who is making the assertion, and I recognize my error above, perhaps what I should have said was that your accusation was whipped out pretty quickly if we take into the account the fact that twitter has a tweet limit.
But this argument is weakened nevertheless.
I’m curious though, are you planning to address any of my concerns?
Thakns!