8TV gets into the act

Seems like Abdullah Badawi is still on the campaign trail, this time addressing the people of Kelantan. The media seem to be happy to provide headline coverage for such visits, which are thinly disguised campaign events. During its 8pm news, 8TV showed Abdullah saying to the crowd something to the effect of "Can I presume that your presence here is because you are with me?" With me? or with the BN?

The narrator then said that Kelantan was one of the poorest states in Malaysia. In the next sentence, s/he said that the state has been under PAS rule since 1990, implying that the PAS-led government is responsible for this state of affairs. What was omitted was the fact that even when the state was under BN-rule, it was still one of the poorest states in Malaysia.

Will the station give similar coverage to opposition politicians' visits to various states?

On the plus side, the station should be commended for highlighting the plight of a group of migrant workers from Indonesia who had not been paid their wages. The workers were camping out in the Paroi stadium in Negri Sembilan and were surviving on a meagre diet. To its credit, the station allowed the workers to air their grievances to the camera. This case, however, was presented as a one-off news item: there was no attempt to analyse the prevailing power structures and to link it to the powerlessness and oppression that migrant workers experience as a matter of routine with little protection under the law.