Wong Chun Wai, what’s your idea of front page news?

Think back to last Monday and try to recall what was the biggest news item.

20,000 in Kampung Baru to witness the expiry of Anwar’s bar from participation in mainstream politics and his announcement of his future plans.

Did anything bigger than this take place in KL last Monday?

I don’t think so.

See Malaysiakini’s reports of this HERE and HERE

For reports in blogosphere, I’ve already referred to Tony’s.

Zorro has also given a pretty good write-up.

The Star?

Yesterday, buried in one of the later pages was an insipid report. Read HERE

How many of you paid RM1.20 yesterday for the rubbish that Wong thought was worthy of your attention? 

 

Fair & Accurate Media Week (6)

Update from Birdseye.

p.s. If no-one else is, the committee and I are keen.

If I appear to have taken a hands-off stance, it’s only because I know this initiative is in good hands.

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STOP PRESS:

Just to let those who are still keen on the subject of the MSM that the name selected is BENAR.

We will next arrange to meet up with the pollies.

Fair & Accurate Media Week (5)

Birdseye sent this in as a comment. I thought it would get more attention here.

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Members of E-group,

It’s time to vote for the name that you like best.

I had mentioned the following three factors that one should take into consideration when choosing the name in the post Fair & Accurate Media Week (3):

1. Our movement is for a free and fair media. A media that is able to report without fear or favor and will present a balanced view.

2. We are reaching for the grassroots so a Bahasa Malaysia title/name that can be understood by all races will be preferable.

3. A name that is simple and have a more ‘natural’ association with the cause. For example ‘Bersih’ is a movement for free, fair and clean elections. Even if one comes across this word and have never heard of the movement, one could deduce that this must have something to do with fairness, transparency or righteousness about something.

Another point to consider is whether the name will lend itself well when applied as a logo on merchandise like caps and T-shirts.

This poll closes at midnight on Sunday, 6th April, 2008.

Fair & Accurate Media Week (4)

By Birdseye

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Ok, title update (in order of appearance):

1. Truth to Tell (or T3)
2. Responsible People’s Media
3. BENAR
4. KEBENARAN
5. Media Bersih
6. Ethical Media
7. Media of Honour

Suggestions open till 3:00 PM, 4th April, 2008.

Fair & Accurate Media Week (3)

By Birdseye.

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In Fair and Accurate Media Week (1), I sought suggestions to replace “Fair and Accurate Media Week” with something that is more memorable and exciting. I think the current title is rather bland and that is because I came up with it in hurry, hoping to find a suitable replacement later. 

Let’s give this a shot with the person whose title we accept receiving a free one-year subscription to Malaysiakini.  

Some of the factors to be taken into consideration when choosing the name are: 

1.       Our movement is for a free and fair media. A media that is able to report without fear or favor and will present a balanced view.

2.       We are reaching for the grassroots so a Bahasa Malaysia title/name that can be understood by all races will be preferred.

3.       A name that is simple and have a more ‘natural’ association with the cause. For example ‘Bersih’ is a movement for free, fair and clean elections. Even if one comes across this word and have never heard of the movement, one could deduce that this must have something to do with fairness, transparency or righteousness about something. 

Any advice from marketing gurus tuning in will be highly appreciated. 

E-Group: 

An e-group has been set up with the following details. Those who are interested to participate in this project can join this group by going to the following URL: 

Group Name:             freemedia08 (that’s zero eight)       

Group home page:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freemedia08

Group email:              freemedia08@yahoogroups.com

My email:                    birdseye1128@yahoo.com 

An email sent to the above group email address will reach all members of the group.

Fair & Accurate Media Week (2)

I like the way Birdseye kicked off his ‘Fair & accurate media week’ post.

‘Okay. Enough of talking. Here is my proposal’ was how Birdseye put it.

And he put it well!

Birdseye, your proposal has been well received.

In a comment to that post, Birdseye put to me : 

 Haris, please don’t bury this post too deep on the right hand side.No need for more letters at this stage. Just constructive ideas to encourage others to voice their support. You have any? Hehehe.

Birdseye, here’s my proposal.

You, SV Singam and Mohd Fadhil take the lead on this. It would be good if some new faces take the baton on this one and run with it.

Would be happy to help put together a working e-group for you.

Perhaps a few more readers would like to collaborate with you in planning this initiative. Anyone?

Other than that, this blog is at your service in pushing forth the Fair & Accurate Media Week.

Close encounter with The Star

 

BK Ong of penangwatch.net sent this in.

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These are the reports from a close encounter with the Star by a group of civil society members-judge for yourself if the Star is worthy as a balanced press as required by the EC. Also you can always try to encounter these power holders in the media face to face rather than whine and whinge in coffee shops or in blogs alone. Close encounters with NST and Utusan had been reported elsewhere-Ong BK

Report 1 by Damian Denis:1)

How they publish their stories:-

- Boss in KL tells them what to write

- It’s a top down approach

- And if they were to cover all stories, still be censored/ filtered by KL

- If national issues, it’s a hands off approach. The Penang office prefer this to be dealt by KL (e.g. Postal votes & election issues)2)

How does The Star cover their stories?

- For an e.g., the use of serial number on the ballot paper was not in depth and many people did not get the actual news about this. Ong brought this up as this caused a lot of confusion to the people especially on polling day.(Voters confused the serial number for voting paper -which remain, and the serial number for voters-which had been removed.)

- As far as political stories are concerned, they will try to tie up all their stories together. For e.g., if Karpal Singh were to go from one place to another, then all his visits will be tied into 1 story/headline. But this seems to be case for the opposition only whereby for BN much more coverage is given for them.

- Also, Ong brought up the issue of conferring government titles to politician who are actually just care-takers of the government. For e.g., Najib is still regarded as the DPM. In actual fact, he is only a party member of UMNO at that point of time. To this, Anna Cheah said they are being practical and trying to save space in their papers.

3) The Mafrel team said that what the MSM needs today including The Star is a fair and balanced coverage( as required by the EC). This is not something we as the public (or customer even) are getting. To this, Anna Cheah reiterated that The Star has given a very balanced report. In fact, she was not apologetic at all for the unfair reporting as we have been trying to tell her.

- Stanley even went to the extent of sharing how some of the news almost made him to “puke” especially the advert by the MIC intimidating the voters(`Vote for us or prepared to pay a price’). Stanley also said that there will a campaign launched to boycott The Star anytime soon if the news content does not change.

- To this Anna Cheah said that The Star needs to renew their license from the KDN and due to this they are afraid of closing shop. Again, we reiterated that the MSM needs to take a public stand that is pro public interest. In addition, she said that the country is not ready for un-licensed media. Her argument was of course due to the chaos & riots that may happen due to the sensitive nature of some news. As to how other countries are well without having to licence their media in ths way she didn’t have any reply. Basically, it boils down to their revenue in keeping their company and workers afloat.

- Another stand by The Star is that they are pro-government of the day and also pro-MCA-their boss! This means that they are publishing more news of the state governments under PKR-DAP-PAS now in comparison to when the parties were not ruling. MAFREL pointed out that this is not democratic as Opposition need to be covered in a balanced media. Blacking out opposition parties (now UMNO is among the opposition parties in Penang) is unbalanced and unfair.

4) The right of reply-

The one sided news was so obvious when DSAI was attacked from all corners by the BN party leaders. Sebastian claim that DASI was not interested to give his point of reply to the allegations brought up by the BN leaders. To which Ong challenged him point blank. Sebastian changed his story and conceded that he may have not heard or not well informed about this issue. This is clearly a case of twisting the fact or spinning on the part of the editors as Ong said. The right of reply was not given at all to DSAI and this clearly shows the one sided news being printed by The Star.

Well, that’s all from me. See if I left out anything. If yes, pls feel free to add in. Thanx.

Regards,

Damian

Report 2 by How Whee:

On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 3:08 AM, Howie Ng wrote:

STAR: Admitted they are pro-government but denied unfair reporting

Date: 24th March, 2008Venue: STAR office

STAR representatives : Anna Cheah, Regional Associate Editor

Lim Ai Lee, New editor, Northern Region

J. Sebestian, Assistant Editor, News

Civil Society members : Ong BK, MAFREL, Howie Ng, MAFREL, Damian, Penangite Stanley, Penangite.

Finally we got to meet the STAR after Ong’s persistent efforts in convincing the Regional Associate Editor, Anna Cheah to obtain permission from her Group Chief Editor in KL. Never have this problem from other newspaper media. We met up at about 3.00pm and explained our purpose of the meeting ie. to ascertain STAR’s stand in the face of alleged general public’s complaint over STAR’s unfair and unbalance new reporting. In contrast with our previous meetings with other 2 newspaper media they were totally in defend of the fact that they are bias in their reporting. They insisted that while they are pro-government in their stand they have given fair and balance coverage for all parties concerned. We had a hard time trying to explain to them that they have the responsibility to the public in providing balance news from all sides in order for the public to make a well-informed decision. However they insisted that being a newspaper owned by MCA they are pro-government in nature. Anna also mentioned that their newspaper annual licensing comes with certain conditions to be met and may be revoked if they do not censor certain news which they considered sensitive in nature. To which Ong responded that they should report the news as it is in the spirit of true journalism in support of press freedom. Moreover there are already existing laws in place to stop irresponsible people cresting news on sensitive issue.

On the case of the army camp phantom voters protest where STAR did send their reporter on site but the report never came out in the paper. Ms Lim Ai Lee replied that DAP Chow Kon Yeow already highlighted the issue few months back and it would be a repetition. But Ong indicated that it was only 2 days before the election and nothing was done by the EC to correct the mistake, even though the report was made so many months back. That was what the press conference was about and the public should be made aware.

On the case of Postal Voters issue on non-secrecy of voters; Anna explained that STAR did attend to the PC called by MAFREL but did not publish the news because it was considered a national news and was passed on to Kl for decision. To which Ong explained that he was an MAFREL observer on one of this postal voting centers and STAR should also report on the view of MAFREL’s stand on this issue.

Stanley brought up another case where STAR was covering a report on a certain BN candidate bombarding Anwar with all kinds of allegations but did not get feedback from Anwar to allow him to reply to any of those allegations made. To this Stanley told the STAR that this was denying coverage and it is even worst than misreporting.

At the end Anna clarified that while they tried to do their best to cover all news possible in a fair and unbiased manner some decision still comes from KL and is beyond their control. There are times when manpower constraint only allows them to prioritize their news while some are left out.

Fair & Accurate Media Week

Birdseye sent this in.

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Okay. Enough of talking. Here is my proposal: 

Malaysians are well aware that the MSM and the TV networks are notoriously biased.  

I believe if something sensible and feasible can be done to correct the malaise, people will support it.  

Why were Bersih on 10-11 and the subsequent Hindraf rallies so successful? In my opinion, the ability of the organizers to galvanize support at the grass root level was key to the success of these events.  Blogs alone cannot deliver this support. Political parties can and they will be keen to join in because they will stand to gain the most if there is a fair press.  

Let’s examine what we have looked at thus far. 

1.       ‘Boycott the Newspapers’ which is a personal desire to stop buying the lying papers.  A group of hardcore supporters with regular access to the Internet but is unlikely to have a significant impact because the grass root level of support is not there. 

2.       ‘The letter to the Advertiser’ campaign which I view as an inane and clumsy attempt to ‘blackmail’ advertisers with the threat of a boycott of the company’ goods or services.  We can disagree on how this measure should be viewed.  

3.       The Boycott of so-called BN owned businesses and companies. I don’t really understand how such entities will be earmarked but I would expect the list to include companies in which PNB, EPF, ‘Yayasan This’ and ‘Yayasan That’ will have an interest in.  It is also the Rakyat’s money like our accounts in the EPF. Thus weakening them is akin to cutting off our nose to spite our own face. It does not seem a smart idea but let us see how the idea pans out. 

I believe the quest for a fair and accurate media will be supported by all levels of society, including corporations, if we carefully plan for what I will describe as a FAIR AND ACCURATE MEDIA WEEK (or any other name that is apt). Not a weeklong love fest with the media. Rather it will be a week that the media will be left to sit on their hands with little to do but reflect on what the people are trying to convey to them.  Seven days with a significant reduction in income can create a lot of sweat and soul searching. 

Every facet of society will be encouraged to join in this effort to deliver that stark reminder to the press that the people demand fair and balanced reporting. We expect the press to ask questions they dare not or simply refused to ask in the past. And we care not the party that is under scrutiny. Let the axe fall where it should. We do not want them to die. Just to be fair. 

Thus individuals will be encouraged to stop their dailies for that one week. Corporations and businesses will be encouraged to stop their print, radio and TV ads for that week in solidarity with the rest of the nation. No companies will feel victimized or singled out under a dubious random selection process. There is no need to threaten or blackmail any company. Every entity is accorded the respect they deserve. 

Why I think this is a feasible plan. 

There is a strong sense of solidarity among the people in this country or the BN will still be sitting pretty today and able to amend the constitution at will.   

People who run the corporations have feelings and the ability to reason and judge what is right or wrong.  We should not simply disparage them as automatons who will bend to the will of the government and even accuse them of misusing funds to help the BN.  They are professionals with a conscience. Of course there are crooks amongst them just as there will be in any other calling. Think of our police and the judges!  

Any normal human believes in fair play and if the process by which we seek their co-operation is reasonable, corporate leaders will react positively. Not when we treat them like school boys and accuse them of abetting the press to lie to the people. We end up looking childish at best. 

As momentum for the week builds, advertisers who are not keen to support the call initially will have to reconsider whether they should book their ads for that week. Their media planners and advisers will think twice. Why play to a potentially half empty hall?  

I hope you will post this suggestion and not let it get lost in a thread. 

Lastly, I will lend an active hand to get this off the ground if you need the help.

Bond Girl Michelle Yeoh was Malaysia’s media darling who could do no wrong

By Helen Ang

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A commentator Gua Bay Song posits — among other strong comments including one by SV Singam on ‘shooting barking dogs’, in a People’s Parliament post — that “the shitty MSM material is usually found between page 1 to page 10.” http://harismibrahim.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/dear-advertiser-are-we-to-believe-what-the-lying-newspapers-say-about-you-and-your-products/ 

I’m suggesting that political and corporate considerations do colour other sections of a newspaper besides domestic news, though to what extent is difficult to measure unless you are in know about what goes on in the MSM backrooms.  

On example of is the dearth of bad press in The Star, and I daresay the rest of local mainstream media for The Touch, a movie was that star vehicle for Michelle Yeoh. It marked Michelle’s debut as co-producer through her own production company Mythical Films. 

The Touch (2002) is a Malaysia-released Hong Kong film with most of the dialogue in English. 

One reviewer had said of it: “Michelle Yeoh and [director] Peter Pau have clearly set out to make a Hollywood film. Unfortunately, they have succeeded.”  Another reviewer said: “It plays more like Lara Croft’s slightly befuddled Asian sister, gone astray in the Gobi desert and a bit confused about which way to go.”  

In the Internet Movie Database, it was said to be “utterly forgettable and disappointing”. Although some moviegoers did have good words for it, The Touch “seemed to be universally acclaimed a major disappointment”.  

Its major fault in the critics’ eye was the weak story. One critic wrote: “The landscapes of Tibet are impressive and make the movie more memorable than the thin plot deserves.” The Touch however did win awards in cinematography for Pau’s work, who was Director of Photography for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in which Michelle also starred.  

Other critics did not like The Touch’s “flaming arrows shooting all over the place”, and said it was “a limp showcase of terrible CGI. Bad call to go the special effects route, Michelle!” 

As far as I can ascertain, the movie was not reviewed in The Star then in 2002. Strange?  

There was publicity write-up in The Star though on The Touch, most naturally, as the Bond Girl is Malaysia’s media darling. She has been guest-of-honour at the newspaper’s media events and been pictured with the paper’s big bosses.  

As far as I’m aware, again, whatever write-up there was in The Star was not negative, bucking the trend of what’s been reported of the movie in the rest of the world, going by reports found on the Net.  

And here’s another funny thing. The site with the most comprehensive collection of movie reviews is Rotten Tomatoes. Although it’s mostly about Hollywood films, I did manage to access very favourable reviews of Crouching Tiger and Jet Li’s Hero. 

I did a search in Rotten Tomatoes on The Touch and found several movies with similar titles. The first one on the list was Touch of Evil, a 1958 effort starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh. Michelle’s movie was listed as The Touch (2004).  

When I clicked on Touch of Evil, the page opened fine. But when I clicked on Michelle’s movie, I got the message ‘Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close’. This happened a few times. I tried several alternative ways to access the page, including via ‘cached’ and Google Search, and every time, I encountered a bug which shut down my Net.  

I use Streamyx broadband. Can you guys reading this please go to the Rotten Tomatoes site, check it out and tell me if you encounter the same perplexing problem. And can some techie conjecture as to why this technical glitch?

MSM Boycott : A reader’s suggestion to hit BN companies where it hurts

J sent in the suggestion below. I thought it merited serious consideration.

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I am writing in response to your call to boycott the local newspapers.

Since the end of last year, I have stopped subscribing to any local newspapers. However, even if everyone were to boycott the MSM, I believe that this would not be enough.

The point of a boycott is to punish the newspapers for spreading lies. The boycott would deprive them of profits and put a halt to the propagation of the newspapers. The further boycott by the advertisers would hurt them even more. Nevertheless, this is a corrupt government that we are dealing with who would stop at nothing to see their propaganda go through including diverting public funds to the newspapers to ensure publication continues.

Therefore, it is imperative that we call for a boycott of not only the newspapers  and TV stations, but all BN owned businesses and companies. This would deplete their coffers faster. Without money, their efforts to smear and discredit the others, who are truly working towards a better Malaysia, cannot continue.

I urge you to consider what I have said here.

I am currently compiling a list of companies and businesses owned by these goons. Hopefully, soon I will have enough on my list to publish for the public to take action against them. Smaller companies will feel the effects sooner than the larger public listed companies.

Nevertheless, the effects will soon be felt by all if we persist and fight hard to bring down the liars.