Star's topsy turvy priorities

A brief content analysis of the first 30 pages of yesterday's Star (northern edition) is pretty revealing and reflects the upside-down priorities of the self-styled "People's Paper".

Page 1 - Headline story about a Singapore construction site collapse (Death toll: 2). Huh? A construction site accident in a neighbouring country merits frontpage treatment? It was only a few days ago that The Star ran a front page story about another construction collapse in Singapore. Is there a trend here? We all know that a certain newspaper in a neighbouring country is fond of highlighting negative stories about Malaysia. But do these accidents in Singapore, tragic though they may be, merit frontpage treatment in Malaysian newspapers when there are other local and foreign stories that are perhaps more significant (see below)?

Page 2 - Aftermath of violence in south Thailand (death toll: 108)

Page 3 - More on Singapore construction site accident

Page 4 - Three local news items

Page 5 - full page Maxis ad

Page 6 - "KL Fashion Week" reports (The organiser of the event is The Star). Shoudn't the fashion week be part of the lifestyle section?

Page 7 - full page Maxis ad

Page 8 - More reports on "KL Fashion Week". Wow, this must be some fashion event.

Page 9 - full page Citibank ad

Page 10-11 - Full page Guardian pharmacy ad

Page 12 - Another report on "KL Fashion Week"! Huh? What's going on here?

Page 13 - Full page Giant supermart ad

Page 14 - Halfpage Public Bank ad and two local news items

Page 15 - Fullpage Carrefour ad

Page 16 - Halfpage ad and two local news items

Page 17 - Another fullpage Carrefour ad!

Page 18 - Fullpage Southern Bank ad

Page 19 - Finally some important local political news: 11 election petitions filed mainly by opposition parties.

Another major news item was squeezed into a tiny report: the reappointments of 11 Suhakam members. Three new commissioners were appointed - largely unknown personalities in human rights circles. Nothing mentioned about a "missing" Suhakam commissioner, Zainah Anwar. Why is she missing from the list? Has she pulled out and if so, why? Also nothing mentioned about the fact that the commissioners' two-year terms of office had expired earlier and they were actually in limbo for several days pending news about their status.

In a more logical world, these two news items slotted onto page 19 should have been frontpage news items or, at the least, they should have appeared on page 2 or 3.

Page 20 - fullpage Celcom ad. Sigh, it looks like half the pages so far are just ads.

Page 21 - half page Parkson ad and small local news item.

Page 22 - finally some more local news

Page 23 - another news item "Keadilan takes EC to court": this should have been in the first three pages as well and not on page 23, please!

Another tiny news report "Panel calls for tighter security at NS camps" also appears on this page. What's the matter, Star - your readers not interested in news about security at the national service camps? Or have the local media taking the cue from officals and toned down their coverage of NS woes?

Page 24 - halfpage Giant ad and a couple of local news items.

Page 25 - fullpage Dell ad

Page 26 - halfpage Southern Bank ad

Page 27 - fullpage Watson ad

Page 28 - local news items and one third page Sony ad

Page 29 - fullpage Jusco ad

Page 30 - fullpage company ad

Page 31 - editorial/letters

Page 32-33 - more reports on Thailand (death toll: 108)

Page 33 - a tiny report on violence in Maluku, Indonesia (death toll: at least 37). This violence is happening in another neighbouring country and it only appears on page 33? What gives? Why so much coverage of the violence in Thailand and so little of that in Indonesia?

Page 39-40 - reports on Iraq (Iraqi death toll this month: 1,200)

No reports on violence and death toll in Aceh, Indonesia.

etc etc

Looking at the above, two things come to mind. First, something else apart from newsworthiness - political correctness and the intention to score a few brownie points? -seems to determine the placing of articles in The Star.

Second, there are so many advertisements in The Star ! In the first 30 pages alone, advertisements take up more than half the pages. Clearly a paper driven so much by commercial considerations can hardly be expected to put the voice of the common people above corporate considerations. Maybe The Star should just drop its "People's Paper" tag.