Today it comes from Jacqueline Ann Surin, editor of The Nut Graph who labels Utusan the “ethno-nationalistic Malay daily”/”ultra-nationalistic Malay paper” which has a “lack of journalistic ethics and professionalism”.
Jacqueline Ann Surin also says that “Utusan is notorious for publishing false, defamatory and racially divisive articles”.
TNG – see below – is the nyawa-nyawa ikan portal that previously gave us stories like ‘Wishing for another 13 May‘, ‘For Allah’ sake’ and declared that the arson and firebombing which resulted from the Allah court judgment was “urban terrorism” by a “BN-sponsored fascism”.
Asking “Apa lagi Umno mahu?”, Jacqueline in her column today ‘The cost of saving Utusan‘ lays out several issues that she has with the paper controlled by the ruling party, viz.
the planned ‘bailout’ (a proposed rights issues), the Deputy Finance Minister’s directive to Umno-linked companies to advertise (“abusing one’s public office”), Utusan‘s role as the “channel for government propaganda”, rewarding “unethical journalism that serves the current ruling party’s interests” and even her displeasure at the name of Jalan Utusan.
Jacqueline asks: “With all of that in mind, what exactly is the government saying when it instructs GLCs to increase its ad spend in Utusan and gives the paper the honour of having a road named after it?”
Scissorati snipping away at the nation’s fabric
Essentially, the media in Malaysia are as polarized as the country’s races.
The leading Malay broadsheets Utusan and BH (formerly the broadsheet Berita Harian) are pro-BN. The media in the English language are pro-Pakatan with only the New Straits Times deemed the sole English paper not to be siding with the opposition.
Nonetheless the NST is somewhat wishy-washy. Pro-Umno bloggers were rather upset with it just a couple of days ago — see Rocky’s Bru (Nov 21), Big Dog (Nov 22), and A Voice (Nov 21) & (Nov 22).
What made the pro-Umno bloggers unhappy above however made Jacqueline Ann Surin very happy.
“Jacqueline Ann Surin was thrilled to bits when The New Straits Times had to issue a page-three-lead apology to Bersih 2.0, Suaram, the Centre for Independent Journalism and Merdeka Centre for publishing a false and baseless article that defamed them.”
Jacqueline did not say whether she was equally thrilled to bits when recently ‘The Malaysian Insider issues fourth apology in over a week‘.
A country divided by language
The readership of Utusan is only one percent Chinese and we wouldn’t be surprised if they comprise mostly mualaf, much like the paper’s columnist Ridhuan Tee Abdullah.
China Press – 中國報, ironic name of a bestselling newspaper in Malaysia – is circulated to a 99 percent Chinese readership, Kwong Wah Yit Poh also to 99 percent Chinese and Nanyang Siang Pau to 98 percent Chinese (figures for Sin Chew unavailable).
Other newspapers do not have as much traction as Utusan in the Malay heartland. The rural areas are also the mainstay of support for Umno. Hence it would not be wrong to equate Utusan as the flagship media rallying the Umno votebank.
DAP spreading its poison everywhere
The Chinese paper op-eds have been grumbling about the rise in ethnic tensions following the 5th May GE13 results.
What the Indians are complaining about in the Tamil papers, the Malays and Chinese do not generally know.
The front page story in Malaysia Nanban (which has a 100 percent Indian readership) below shows a photograph of Lim Guan Eng and his deputy, P. Ramasamy the Penang Deputy Chief Minister (II). The Nanban article on 24 Oct 2013 says that the DAP bosses are keen to built a Tamil secondary school SMJK (T) on the Penang mainland.
Yet DAP is the Bangsa Malaysia party that wants to ban anything associated with race, such as the Muslim Lawyers Association whose de-registration was demanded by DAP chairman Karpal Singh. Such is the inherent contradiction of the Firster ideology.
Politics of hate begets hate
The DAP, after spreading its Politics of Hate to Sarawak (Christian population 42.6 percent) is now venturing into Sabah (Christian population 26.6 percent) with their ‘Impian Sabah’ programme following hard on the heels of ‘Impian Sarawak’.
Jacqueline Ann Surin reckons that Utusan is bad in its racial divisiveness but makes no mention of the same, if not much worse, faults in the Jerusubang media.
The Scissorati are constantly attacking Utusan and some of them doing so in cahoots with the DAP evangelista politicians. Screenshot below: The Star Editor tweeted that “1Msia for Utusan to print outrageous lies”.
Yet the pro-establishment people are letting the English media off the hook, like when The Malaysian Insider printed outrageous lies against Mukhriz Mahathir on the eve of the Umno party election not too long ago.
English media attacking Malay, Muslim groups
In yesterday’s article ‘Aliran goes digital, broadens online presence‘, the NGO which used to publish the Aliran Monthly announced that it is will be going fully online and into social media. In his keynote address to members at their AGM, Aliran president Francis Loh took to task the prime minister, saying that Najib Razak “was now allowing extremists like Perkasa, Pekida and Isma to restore the ketuanan Melayu agenda”.
Handling the media with far more belligerence is Marina Mahathir. In her lawyer’s letter of demand to Isma, Marina requires that the Muslim NGO publish an apology on her terms in its own Isma website and Facebook page, in Utusan and Sinar Harian as well as The Malay Mail Online and The Malaysian Insider. Marina’s choice of the two selected English media, MMO dan TMI, is telling as they are the most Christian-friendly, after The J-Star.
Gunting dalam Lipatan
The Sneaky Star which is the TMI‘s twin in their mutual partisan slant favouring the evangelista (the Jerusubang paper tweeted Hannah Yeoh’s appointment as Selangor Speaker a total of 10 times in the span of a single day) must be called to account by having the GLCs pull out their ads from The J-Star and the government agencies cancelling their subscription.
Utusan is to Umno what the The J-Star is to the DAP. If Utusan is pulling the votes to Umno, then The J-Star is doing the same for the DAP. The difference is that the rural population (Utusan‘s readership base) is dwindling whereas the youthful urban population (The J-Star‘s readership base) is spiking.
The MCA, in allowing the media it owns and controls to pursue a pro-Pakatan agenda, is really stabbing the BN in the back. KOMA: Kick Out MCA Already.
Helen Ang 
Just came over from Rocky who is griping about FMT’s Jesvant Kaur’s piece which read like a hate-piece on the PM’s wife. See, this is what i don’t understand, isn’t there any standard in journalism? Or can you, just because you write under the banner of MI, FMT, TNG or Star or Utusan, just happily write your opinions or take on any person or issue or event without having to verify or check the validity of your piece?
Reading political-base news these days is like reading entertainment news – there’s way too much info on the personalities involved than the event that they are involved in, the mistakes are over-blown sometimes out of proportions and whatever rights they do are never printed.
Maybe, (now, don’t jump on me) there’s a need for a regulations on this freedom of the press, hmm?
I agree. They’re full of hate and the portals allow hatchet jobs to be published.
Re:”Maybe, (now, don’t jump on me) there’s a need for a regulations on this freedom of the press, hmm?”
In my opinion there is no need for regulations. In fact I would argue that the current toxic atmosphere is the result of decades of regulation.
If you read Malaysiakini and most other online news portals to Pakatan supporters everything they print is the Gospel (sic) truth. The same goes with Establishment partisans with their various mouthpieces.
There are of course issues when the State controls the mainstream media but I would argue that the alternative media (wrt to urban audiences) has become the mainstream media and so, harping on the inequalities of distribution to an urban audience becomes pretty meaningless.
The question of rural audiences is another matter and this points to a more systemic dysfunction wrt regards to infrastructure and, what’s the phrase around here “dumbing down”.
The reality is that most people feel comfortable in echo chambers. Confirmation bias is considered reality and questioning of assumptions verboten.
Whats disturbing is that the mindset of the opposition groups is such that they feel a right of sorts to publish and be damned, to vilify and defame with relative impunity especially Malays and Muslims by attacking UMNO (necessarily a Malay Muslim organization).
But dare anyone publish a response to their hate speech using the same vernacular as they do and it becomes ‘racist’, ‘anti non Malay’ and anything else feeble and neurotic they can possibly think of.
FMT is not a journal by any stretch of the imagination. Neither is the appropriately titled “Nutgraph”. Jacqueline Surin is not alone but a curr in the same kennel as the others whose idea of an erudite essay is “how good is the Chinese penis” and other goodies like it.
The cycle will not stop till someone lances the boil. And that too may be more than a metaphoric expression when gauging grass root level Malay sentiments to these attacks on them.
Government unfortunately appears paralysed in the face of this growing boil in our collective bottoms.
re: “to vilify and defame with relative impunity”
Yes, that they certainly do. They PIS — Provoke, Insult, Slander
re: “The cycle will not stop till someone lances the boil. And that too may be more than a metaphoric expression when gauging grass root level Malay sentiments to these attacks on them.”
Methinks so too. The reckoning is not too far off.
“Yes, that they certainly do. They PIS — Provoke, Insult, Slander”
You mean newspapers such as Utusan which has consistently been publishing anti-Chinese, anti-Indian, anti-Christian, or whatever convenient scapegoat of the month, been proven as liars in the court of law, and exposed on the Internet and social media as the ‘Pravda’ that they are?
Even the government had to resort to prop up Utusan in the wake of failing advertising revenue.
A classic case of Helen refusing to see dead elephant in front of her eyes.
re: “You mean newspapers such as Utusan which has consistently been publishing anti-Chinese, anti-Indian, anti-Christian, or whatever convenient scapegoat of the month, been proven as liars in the court of law, and exposed on the Internet and social media as the ‘Pravda’ that they are?”
Okay, we’ll take up your challenge. Pls provide the url of the anti-Chinese, anti-Indian, anti-Christian Utusan article of your choosing and we here will go through it with a fine toothcomb.
re: “Even the government had to resort to prop up Utusan in the wake of failing advertising revenue.”
Even the commercially successful J-Star experienced a drop in circulation lah.
re: “A classic case of Helen refusing to see dead elephant in front of her eyes.”
“Okay, we’ll take up your challenge. Pls provide the url of the anti-Chinese, anti-Indian, anti-Christian Utusan article of your choosing”
The columnist Ridhuan Tee is a good example:
http://www.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2009&dt=0726&pub=Utusan_Malaysia&sec=Rencana&pg=re_01.htm
‘Sedangkan kita semua sedia maklum bahawa rumah ibadat orang bukan Islam (Hindu, Buddha dan Kristian) melebihi berkali-kali ganda daripada jumlah masjid dan surau.
Jumlah kuil Hindu sahaja sudah melebihi masjid dan surau, apatah lagi jika dicampurkan dengan rumah ibadat agama Buddha dan Kristian dan lain-lain. Sedangkan semua sedia maklum bahawa orang Islam adalah penduduk majoriti dan agama Islam adalah agama rasmi negara ini.
Logik
Dari segi logik dan rasionalnya, sudah tentu kita mahu melihat bilangan surau dan masjid melebihi rumah ibarat yang lain, dengan mengambil kira sejarah dan keistimewaan Islam (Melayu) seperti yang termaktub dalam perlembagaan.
Tetapi adakah ia berlaku? Jawapannya, tidak. Realiti yang jelas adalah, kita mempunyai patung yang tertinggi dan terbesar di dunia, walaupun penduduknya hanya berjumlah lebih kurang 10 peratus. Beginilah nasib Melayu di bumi Melayu. Terlalu menjaga hati orang, sehingga hati sendiri terguris tiada siapa yang tahu atau mungkin orang lain tak ingin ambil tahu, sebab tidak berkaitan atau tidak menguntungkan.’
I really can’t disagree with you on RT but it would be fairer if you provided an Utusan staff example.
yup…. RT is just a columnnist, not Utusan writer. Anyway, he’s talking about malay, yet he is chinese. And if Karpal Singh is so true about againts all race-religion society, he should be talking about againts all chinese and Tamil schools as a start!. DAP is always DAP.
Anything viewed from different vantage point draws different truths. Or what we perceived to be truths. Some people are interested in divergent views, some are not. Most prefer the comfort and reassurance of being in the company of folks who think like they do. There is this feeling of having the claim to the sovereign truth when you are among comrades who stand with you on your side of the fence. I am not judging. I too find solace in the Mkini crowd occasionally just to balance my perspectives after hanging around here.
I have no problem with different portals/newspapers aligning to their paymaster and proceed to highlight articles from favorable vantage point. What I don’t condone is outright fabrication weaved from thin air, tainted with malice. I was not happy with the stupid 505 blackout news stunt and Rosmah tauntings. But still, I don’t believe in censoring the internet. The fault lies not only with the newsportals, but just as much with the mentality of those who choose to digest it raw without ponderings, but I am not discounting this could be by choice.
The e-evolution has a way of correcting itself. I say bring it on. Let all those pro-BN and pro-Pakatan portals flourish. The more the merrier. No one has yet died of information overload, on the other hand a lack of it could very well make way for speculations to fill the void.
I think they are always double standard ie a hypocrite. Condemn utusan reporting but always practice utusan style of reporting.
For example every time I mention TMI they censor the name. Really shameful this Jacq.
But credit must be given when due. All my comments have been published despite being critical unlike TMI etc and other PR bloggers who simply ban my comments or ban me totally for contrarion views which they can’t reply.
TMI has become notorious for banning. Even Oik kena, see http://oik65.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/practising-what-you-preach/