Toss the Sun-block! Danger, danger, Sun-stroke …
April 22, 2008
By Helen Ang
________________________
There’s a danger to flipping. Say you asked 100 teenagers to tick a preference: ‘I like Coca-Cola’ or ‘I like Pepsi’. If 30 youngsters indicate a preference for Coke, you cannot infer from the answer that 70 ‘dislike’ the other drink.
In an earlier post ‘Save yourself from Sun-stroke!’, I’d noted how theSun flipped the Aliran Media Monitors statistics on pro-BN election coverage to give a misleading impression. Well, theSun has done it again, and flipped another rotten egg sunny side up.
Its web edition carried this article on April 18 – ‘Young peninsula M’sians optimistic about national unity: Study’. theSun’s headline is another example of what I’ve dubbed its ‘singing telegram’ function, i.e. whistling the BN tune.
For comparison, Straits Times (Singapore paper) has this on the same Press conference: ‘M’sian Chinese dissatisfied over national policies: survey’, titling the article as per an international press agency copy it used.
NST’s headline was ‘Polarisation among youths widening, study shows’ and its article at a little over 200 words sketchy. The Star: ‘Youths tend to keep to own race’ was lengthier but its coverage of what was said when the survey findings were presented nonetheless diluted as well.
On the other hand, this is how wire service AFP intro-ed its article: “Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese are dissatisfied with the country’s national and economic policies while youngsters are becoming racially polarised, a survey released on Friday said. Racial and religious tensions, alarm over ‘Islamisation’ and alienation of the country’s minorities were reflected in the ruling coalition government’s worst ever results in March 8 polls.”
None of the three Malaysian papers chose to link the survey findings to any discernible shortcomings of government policy. The survey last July and August interviewed 1,000 youths aged between 18 and 35 across Peninsula Malaysia. The 18-24 cohort were found to prefer mixing with their own race and lacked interaction in school and university.
Malaysiakini reported Tricia Yeoh, representing the survey, as saying: “The Chinese were quite pessimistic about their future, followed by the Indians. The Malays were generally satisfied with their lives in the country.”
And AFP had this little extra from Tricia, “The Chinese do feel the most dissatisfied and most unfairly treated.” But do let’s return to theSun’s sunny headline which was at odds with everybody else’s … ‘‘Young peninsula M’sians optimistic about national unity: Study’
theSun did not quote or attribute Tricia at all. Did its reporter fail to notice Tricia in the room due to glare and selective hearing?
Co-author of the survey Edmund Bon said the government should change its ‘superficial’ national unity campaigns which merely scratch the surface. “What we need to look at are the underlying problems… education policies, scholarship issues, quotas, both religious and racial policies, rather than the usual education campaigns and awareness programmes,” said Edmund. The Singapore paper carried the story most compressively; our own Terrific Trio, as to be expected, failed to quote Edmund explicating the above.
As to how theSun came to have its bad headline day, its wording hinged on this paragraph: “Of the 1,000 respondents most of the 300 rural respondents seemed to be more optimistic about unity in the country and gave higher ratings to issues of harmony and race, while urban respondents showed a greater level of dissatisfaction.”
The paper’s skewed headline referenced a fragment of the overwhelmingly 300 Malay-Muslim respondents while choosing to ignore the more urbanized 700. It pulled the same flip trick during the election, something I wrote about in Sun-stroke, Part 1. And its ‘optimistic about national unity’ pitch manages to even self-contradict the tone of the rest of its body text.
One utterly superficial – and outrageously criminal – national unity programme is the National Service which only last week tragically took the life of yet another 18-year-old trainee.
Given the similarly superficial Sun’s track record of muzak (mindless elevator music) in socio-political writing, I would hardly be surprised if the paper were to interview or publish NS Training Council chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye – a prolific Letter-to-the-Editor writer – on how everyone has a place under the Malaysian sun.
- Straits Times (S’pore)
http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Asia/STIStory_228559.html
- Malaysiakini
http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/81622
April 22, 2008 at 7:22 pm
We must take the initiative. Get our relatives & friends to read Malaysia Today & selected blogs. Email them articles that are from a more neutral source. I have given computer lessons to some of my relatives including my mom. They are now read MT every other day.
April 22, 2008 at 8:11 pm
The Great Divide !
The frustration of a parent and the anguish suffers by a child may seems to be very common and an everyday occurrence. But the cause of this frustration and anguish is the factor that creates division and polarisation of the races in Malaysia. What is this cause that is so explosive and destructive? It is the deprivation of the world-recognised basic right of every child – his right to be given an education that befits her capabilities!
A child , from small, was told to study hard so that she could contribute constructively to society, and she took the message to heart. She studied hard and when the SPM results were announced, she was overjoyed as she had scored the maximum 12 As. She looked forward to be accepted into the matriculation class. She was in for a rude shock, she was rejected! Her anguish would not have been so deep and her hurt would not have been so devastating if the selection had been done in a more even-handed manner. Her excellent results could not get her accepted but her friends who had only managed 3 to 5 As were given places. This is Malaysia’s education as implemented by the ‘little Napoleons’.
This scene is being played out in many non-Malay families throughout Malaysia, year-in an year-out. The parents who had always believed in the government and the system, have always taught their children to be law-abiding. When such thing happened to their families and they were asked by the children why such thing should befall them, they had no plausible explanations.
These families, left to their own devices, have no much of a choice but to seek their own means to provide for the completion of their children’s education. If, some of these children manage to go oversea to complete their studies, it comes as no surprise if they decide not to come back once they finish their studies. Who could have blame them.
In some of the families, the parents have to make great sacrifices so that their children can graduate from private institutions. Those who are not so fortunate financially may have to force their children to give up their dreams of obtaining a tertiary education.
Any wonder many non-Malay youngsters do not share the same sense of patriotism of their parents. Any wonder why the races are so divided and polarised in our nation? To this, you add the insensitive words and actions of UMNO politicians, the inequality in job opportunities in the government sector, the inequality in business opportunities, the loud insistent battle cry of the Malay supremacy, the unwarranted questioning of the loyalty of the non-Malays, the not so subtle attempts to sideline the religious beliefs and practices of the other races, you create the ‘Great Divide’!
If Samy Vellu and other politicians attribute the election debacle to just the demolition of the temple, then it is a clear case of the political leaders being out of touch with the political realities! There are many deep causes at work.
May more responsible and compassionate leaders be divinely-guided to come forward now to help close the ‘Great Divide’.
novice101,
I wholeheartedly join you in your closing call.
I am determined that the factors that have brought about this ‘Great Divide’ must cease, that we dislodge that wedge driven between our diverse polity and that we begin to heal as a nation of a single people.
We, the rakyat, will have to initiate and lead in this process.
April 22, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Huh? National service took another life?
I don’t read anymore local newspaper nor listen to local new now.
However I am sad to hear about another young life lost to the STUPID National Service. What is the point of doing all the physical when what we really need is unity in understanding each other culture more, learn about each other belief and custom. DO NOT IMPOSE Religion on the others.
I don’t agreed to have racial and religion based political party, nor educational system.
I think we can do better is we sticked to english as medium of education and BM as compulsary pass and chinese and tamil or Iban or whatsoever as elective.
It is not too late to switch back to the status quo before all this damage was done in the late 70s.. is it under TDM hand? Another of his sin to Malaysian?
Shiok Guy
http://shiokguy.blogspot.com/
April 23, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Haris,
I read the SUN article differently. It DOES contain the following:
–quote–
Chinese were quite pessimistic about their future in the country, followed by the Indians. Malays were generally satisfied with their life in the country.
The study showed that Chinese were dissatisfied with economic policies and had a strong aversion to education in Malaysia, preferring foreign education over local.
–end quote–
I have read about a Tamil newspaper being told to halt production for unspecified reasons – (I am told they covered the PKR event, which all BN papers ignored) – so to me at least, all reporting must be balanced between outright truth, and reporting between the lines. The Sun article did tell the bitter truth that AFP could say plainly. They just had to print it between the lines.
And I don’t blame them.
April 24, 2008 at 10:43 am
Ms Greenapples,
I, on the other hand, would hold theSun to account. If I wanted to read between the lines, I’d grab a Henry James novel. People read the newspaper to get a clear, straightforward and accurate presentation of facts and events, not to second-guess.
(1) theSun flipped its interpretation of statistics both in its headline & intro — they deliberately angled their story in that particular manner to propagate the particular narrative it wants to shape.
And in this case, even NST & Star had headlines symmetrical to AFP, Malaysiakini and Singapore Straits Times.
(2) You would excuse them for not daring to report forthrightly. I would not, not when theSun, compared to the other papers has aggressively advertised itself as fearless. Each publication projects its own niche — Star (the People’s Paper), mKini (local politics), NST (pro-establishment).
theSun has gone out of its way to promote itself as having reporters who are better than their colleagues in other MSM. This paper fails to deliver on its own self-aggrandising.
April 24, 2008 at 11:48 am
Ms Greenapples,
The SUN got to where they are at no: 2 in terms of circulation (behind the Star) because of their emphasis that their award winning journalists are ‘the heartbeat of a newspaper’. Not bad for a free paper.
The SUN is probably the only rag which went in this direction i.e. whilst MSM usually provide space for advertisers, the SUN actually advertised themselves to the public as a credible source of information presented by an intrepid group of fearless and ‘in your face’ journos who come with an opinion. This was done in collaboration with Crush Communications which you can read at this link -
http://www.adoimagazine.com/home/index.cfm?artid=3044&level3=1&issuelist=441&listing=442&sc=442
To an extent, they’ve succeeded in making the message carriers be the message itself. That’s why they are at no: 2 now.
I am all for creative writings but when a national issue is ’skewed’ so differently from the norm as carried by other MSMs including AFP, you will begin to wonder on the purpose and reasoning.
But never mind, their ‘famous’ journos can’t be wrong. After all, it in their branding (which still shows up on their on-line version, including one who have left the stable).