An open letter to The Star
Where is your journalistic integrity?
Yesterday’s Views section(page N34, 10 December 2007), in which you accept letters from the public show a blatant bias towards towards a certain perspective. In this case, it’s showing only letters that agree with the Sultan. 4 out of 4 of these letters agree with the Sultan that the recent demonstrations were disturbing the peace. What about the unpublished letters that disagreed with it?
A demonstration is called a demonstration. You use words such as ‘illegal gathering’ and ‘illegal march’ which are clearly biased. If I wanted to be biased, I’d call the demonstrations a “rally for freedom and democracy”.
How can we get a balanced perspective if you only publish the views of ministers within the ruling party? Why do the opposition leaders get silenced? Why is it that during election period, only BN advertisements are shown and never the opposition ? Then again, you never did promise to be impartial and objective, did you?
Maybe its the fact that you are owned by Huaren Holdings Sdn Bhd, which is the investment arm of MCA (The “chinese” front of the ruling party,Barisan Nasional). That sure says something about your editorial policy.
I’d like to end by saying I’ve stopped reading your newspaper.
Thank you for nothing,
Jason Phoon
oh the irony.. did you watch the aljazeera interview on bersih ?
the malay dude said the press can sometimes publish inaccurate stuff and hes calling bloggers liars.. thats like launching a right hook right back onto his face
me: yes I did watch the interview. I will post it in the next post, along with another one I found to be very funny …
don’t know why i’m laughing. dude, read The Sun.
me: The Sun ? You gotta be kidding rite … They’re the ones that reported a UFO above TMC a few years ago …
You tell them Jason Phoon!
You can never believe what you read these days.
me: Hehe, we live in the matrix ?
Well, I think such newspaper are still worth a glance to see what kind of pro-gown-own-ment passed-motion that they produce?
me: by pass-motion , u mean shit right ?? haha ..
I still read the malaysian newspaper and laugh at wat the journalist said, and go ahead read the others blogs/international news which i think are less bias.
But please do watch “aljazeera interview on bersih”, it is the joke of the centuries.
Haih…. wat have happen to Malaysia….
me: I did watch it … I’ll show in the next post what I found too !
btw, a few blogger have been caught while writting about this/that issues. Please be careful ^^.
first pharagraph is consider as defamation of newspaper,
second pharagraph is consider as threathen Country Security,
Third Pharagraph Anti Government
Fourth Pharagraph another defamation of watever u called it.
Basiclly we arent suppose to write a fuck thing about a fuck things happening in our fucking c*unt*y. coz we may end up in fucking police station.
me: Defamation ? I’m just pointing out, without bias what they did. Second paragraph is as neutral as I can get. Third paragraph is not anti-government, it’s press freedom. Me ? A ‘blogger’ which they deem a threat ?
This is the reason I never read newspapers (ANY newspaper). Never have, never will.
me: You’re right … haha. Newspapers are a waste of our time
Or just pay for Malaysiakini. RAwrawrawrar don’t forget to get arrested.
me: I dono, Rm150 a year ? I’ll just read the headlines and summary there thank you ..
The only reason why you are reading biased articles or letters by the newspapers in Malaysia is because they are bought over and owned by the Government.
That is why newspapers like The Star are becoming more crappy everyday and the weight of the papers that you’re holding are just purely advertisements. Where is the 60:40 news to ad’s ratio anymore.
me: erm, that’s what I said in my post. they are state owned! I don’t know about the ad ratio though
GOOD! i love your spirit, man! stupid newspapers post shitz up make us Malaysians upset only.
me: well, I’m upset alright! it’s all shitz… urghhh
Go Jason!
me: now, all i have to do is send in my letter to the star .. ehhe
couldn’t disagree more..
good posting..
me: why thank you … glad I’m not the only nut who sees the bias
for me, most of the time i’d skip the news part.. just go straight to the comics section! muhahaha! gotta love Zits
and russ doesn’t read the newspaper at all when he’s back.. he said too depressing to read.. haha..
me: hahah, i skip to comics and tv schedule too
I agree with Russ, it’s not just the Star but news are meant to be sensationalist , so they always show bad news first. Some people say it’s a diversion from the real important issues, but who know ..
Come on, give ‘em some credit. Our local papers have demonstrated journalistic integrity since never.
me: I’ll give em some credit alright. Up their ass
I agree! I sokong what you wrote…Actually most of ‘us’ are aware of what you have just written. But what can we, minorities do? If we voice out our dissatisfaction, we would be jailed and the garblement will say that it’s irregral…What to do? we are living in a ‘democratic’ country…but the word ‘democracy’ has no substance over form..Sad but true…
jp: well, we actually live in a totalitarian country, where we can be jailed for anything under the ISA. What to do ??