The Great Malaysian Hiding Game

On 26 July, the youth wing of DAP or DAPSY was finally able to hold the debate on the Internal Security Act (ISA) between the BN’s Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz and the DAP’s Lim Kit Siang. This came after the police had earlier refused permission.

The event finally held was a first in Malaysia. Dubbed "The Great Malaysian Debate", it drew a 1,000-strong crowd, which spilled out of the packed Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall. This reflected the significance or controversy of the ISA for many Malaysians and not just those who could be present at the debate.

In short, here was (1) an unprecedented event (2) about a highly controversial law, that (3) attracted a huge crowd.

How then did the NST, theSun and The Star cover the event?

NST hides the story on page 14

Of the three, the NST showed the least interest in the story.

To begin with, it had the story on page 14 and at the very bottom of it. Even a story on a post-grunge band, Hoobastank (say what?) from Los Angeles coming to perform in Malaysia on 15 Aug got better treatment (it was placed at the top left corner of page 8). A picture of the band took up even more space than the report on the ISA debate.

To say the NST buried the story is a glaring understatement. More accurately, it was trying to hide it. To be fair, any newspaper would want to do the same when the content of the NST report is examined.

The NST also gave the story the shortest coverage compared to the other two English dailies. How short? Why, you could take your own sweet time to count the number of words and it would still take you less than half a minute. More precisely, at most, no more than 150 words.

And what did the report actually have to say? Of the seven paragraphs, four dealt with the basic information of what the event was, where it was held, who were the people involved. Of the remaining three, what Lim and Nazri said took up one and two paragraphs respectively.

Lim said the ISA should be abolished because we no longer live in a period of the emergency when the ISA was created as a tool to fight communism. Nazri said the ISA was still needed because there were other threats in the country now. He also argued that the people wanted it for the peace and stability in the country.

While we understand the media do not need to report on everything that was said, what the NST provided surely is woefully inadequate given that the event was a debate, and Lim and Nazri spoke for two hours.

The NST report also did not mention the size of the crowd that showed up for the debate or any kind of description of the audience.

Hmmm. All this makes us wonder: Did the NST actually send a reporter to cover the story? No bylines were given.

Lopsided Sun

Meanwhile theSun and The Star gave significantly more substantive coverage. The story took up about two-thirds of a tabloid page in each paper. Both papers also provided more of the views form Nazri and Lim from the debate.

The problem with theSun’s story was that it was lop-sided. Nazri’s view took up significantly more space than Lim’s. Even the headline came from Nazri, that parliament is not a place to debate ISA. It was a rather lame headline as well, as it is very much old news.

Star buries a newsworthy report

At least The Star’s headline - indicating a huge turn-out for the debate - was far more newsworthy. The paper also provided a picture while the other two papers did not. It was of Nazri and Lim shaking hands.

On the other hand, The Starsomewhat buried its report, which appeared on page 8, unlike theSun, which carried its story on page 2. Why could they not have given the story the appropriate treatment by front-paging it?

Sun puts Miss Malaysia contestants on front page

What did theSun have for its front page that day? There were two items: a story about the police giving National Service trainees a one-week respite for failing to show up for training as scheduled, and a picture of several Miss Malaysia pageant contestants surrounding an elderly man singing and playing his guitar at a home for the elderly.

Now, was it really important to have the picture of the elderly man on the front page that day? If the intention of theSun was to have a picture for the front page, why not a picture of something connected with the ISA debate instead (followed by the story on page 2)? Say, a picture of Nazri and Lim shaking hands?

Star frontpages Pak Lah with Spiderman and the Hulk

What about The Star? It had three items on the front page. One was on the government planning to review one-sided contracts given out earlier. Another, a Seremban salesgirl getting public and media attention for catching a snatch thief, thanks to her weight as she was able to sit on the thief before the police arrived. The Star was the only English daily to run the story about how she caught the thief a week or two ago. While we do not mind the paper trying to do a self-congratulatory piece here, surely it could have done this on some other page.

The third item on the front page of The Star was a picture of PM Abdullah Badawi visiting the mega sales carnival in Kuala Lumpur. The picture showed him with Spider-Man, The Hulk, and other comic super heroes!

Now, instead of this picture, would it not have been far more appropriate to have the picture of Nazri and Lim shaking hands? How often do we see these two men from opposing parties shaking hands? Would the picture alone not pique the public’s curiosity when they walked past news stands and get them to buy the paper?

Newsworthy criteria ignored

Above all, the debate story had three important newsworthy criteria going for it to be front page material. As mentioned earlier, it involved an unprecedented event, a controversial law, and a huge crowd.

On the other hand, the three major Chinese-language dailies–Nanyang Siang Pau, Sin Chew Jit Poh, and Oriental Daily--appeared to be far more cognizant of the news-worthiness of the debate story. They front-paged the story and accompanied it with pictures.

So, why were the English dailies, especially the UMNO-connected NST, trying to downplay the event?