Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan was reported to have instructed top government-linked companies (GLC) to advertise more in Malay language newspapers particularly Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian. He said he has written several letters to the chairpersons of the GLCs to spend more of their advertisement budget in the said newspapers.
On September 13th, the Prime Minister made similar call to GLC to advertise more in Utusan. This has prompted me to ask in Parliament on October 29th for the rational behind the government’s call for government agency to advertise in Utusan Malaysia. I also prompted the Prime Minister to answer to the public the total amount spent by all government agency on the paper Utusan on 2011 and 2012.
It was revealed that the agencies and departments under the Prime Minister Department alone spent a whopping RM1.55million on advertisements in Umno-owned Utusan Malaysia; RM732,972.92 in 2011 and RM822,638.04 in 2012.
A Blatant Bail Out
Both Prime Minister Najib and Deputy Finance Minister’s statements are desperate attempts to “bail out” a dying newspaper. Utusan Malaysia’s circulation has been dropping consistently from the height of 350,000 a day to about 178,000 a day in December 2012. It was reported that Utusan Group’s debt amounts to RM20million.
Because of its several false reporting, Utusan drew many lawsuits from many victims ranging from members of the civil society to political leaders. Utusan has lost many lawsuits that amounts to hundreds of thousands of ringgit, with many more pending in court. All these have severely hurt the Group’s financial standing.
Perhaps this is the reason why the master of the Utusan Group, the UMNO leaders are now asking the GLCs to advertise more in Utusan in order to bail out this struggling newspaper
GLC belongs to Malaysians not UMNO
The call by Ahmad Mazlan has compromised the public interest by confusing his role as UMNO’s publicity chief with his role as a deputy minister. He should always remember that as a deputy minister who is given the responsibilities and trust by the people to serve them, he should always put all the Malaysians’ interests first.
GLC should also exercise independent and careful spending. Whether to advertise or not in Utusan or any other newspaper should be decided professionally. They should not succumb to political pressure to do something that is against their business principles. GLC’s mandate is to safeguard the nation’s interests not UMNO’s interests. Political leaders come and go, but GLC will always remain there to serve the rakyat.
No Political Party should own public media
The problem with Utusan is its complicated relationship with the governing political party. The paper has lost its integrity and credibility ever since the takeover by UMNO in the 1960s, despite strong concerns and workers strike staged against it. Since then, Utusan was used to help UMNO propagate its political agenda by silencing any opposition voice. It is only a matter of time that public lost confidence in its controversial reporting. It’s completely unacceptable now that the circulations dropped and the company is losing money, its political masters as the government of the day is using the public money to bail out its own propaganda paper.
Another Malay language daily, Sinar Harian, on the other hand has remained unbiased in its news reporting and therefore has been gaining increasing circulation as well as significant amount of advertisements. Its independence in reporting has earned trusts and readership across a wide spectrum of public. It looks set to overtake Utusan any day in terms of readership to become the leading Malay language daily paper. [QK1]
The younger generation now can only mourn the glorious day of independent and unbiased reporting by then-Utusan Melayu founded by the father of Malay journalism Abdul Rahim Kajai. I hope the political party involved learn the lesson that they can only fool the public for some time but not all the time. To earn the people trust and their support, it still comes down to the effort put into good governance not propaganda. |
**** Press Statement by Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin on GLC to advertise in Utusan on 11th November 2013 at Parliament lobby
