NST churns out pro-BN propaganda

Polling day is tomorrow. Let’s look at how the New Straits Times (NST) online covered the campaigning in the past three days--5, 6 and 7 of March. As the tables below indicate, the paper remains ever faithful to Barisan Nasional as its mouthpiece.

News items:

5 March 6 March 7 March All 3 days

BN (Focus) 19 (41%) 16 (37%) 11 (30%) 46 (37%)

BN (Positive) 13 (28%) 9 (21%) 11 (30%) 33 (26%)

BN (Negative) 0 ( 0%) 1 ( 2%) 0 ( 0%) 1 (0.1%)

NEUTRAL 3 ( 7%) 3 ( 7%) 4 (11%) 10 (7.9%)

BALANCED 2 (4.5%) 3 ( 7%) 3 ( 8%) 8 (6.3%)

OPP (Focus) 1 ( 2%) 5 (12%) 2 ( 5%) 8 (6.3%)

OPP (Positive) 2 (4.5%) 1 ( 2%) 0 ( 0%) 3 (2.4%)

OPP (Negative) 6 (13%) 5 (12%) 6 (16%) 17 (14%)

TOTAL 46 (100%) 43(100%) 37(100%) 126 (100%)

Commentaries/Opinions:

5 March - 1 BN (Positive) & 1 Balanced

6 March - 1 Balanced, 2 Neutral & 2 OP (Negative)

7 March - 4 BN (Positive) and 1 Balanced

Out of a total of 126 news items for the three days, a whopping 79 or 63% of them were focused and positive on BN. Only one news item could be considered as negative towards BN. On the other hand, only about 28 items were about the opposition (OPP). And more than half or 17 of them were negative on them. Meanwhile, only eight news item could be considered as having a balanced coverage and 10 are neutral election related items.

Eight of the news items negative on the opposition singled out PKR, in particular Anwar Ibrahim. Chandra Muzaffar’s outburst against Anwar at The Star sponsored forum on election issues was a major focus in NST as well. So, whatever happened to the supposed competition between the two English dailies that usually has them respecting each other’s exclusive coverage? NST appeared willing to make an exception to have this opportunity to publicise Chandra’s bitter vindictiveness towards Anwar.

Another news item criticising Anwar came from former PM Mahathir Mohamad. It was taken from Bernama. NST has blacked out Mahathir for some time now, including in the coverage of the election campaign. But it was shamelessly willing to make another exception here.

Regarding opinions or commentaries on the election in the NST for the past three days, not a single piece was positive on the opposition while two were critical of them. Meanwhile five out of a total 12 opinions/commentaries were positive on BN compared to three that gave a balanced analysis and the other two dealt with neutral election-related topics.

MIC deputy president Palanivel was the subject of a commentary. It was written by his wife. How nice! Of course, don’t count on NST to extend the same goodwill to the spouse of a leader of any of the opposition.

One may ask, was there coverage of the DAP’s gathering at Han Chiang High School in Penang on 6 March? Nope. The rally that attracted a crowd of 60,000 strong was not in the NST on 7 March. Then, again, neither did the paper cover the DAP gathering also at Han Chiang High on 1 March.

The NST early in the election campaign offered the view that large turnouts for ceramahs do not translate into votes. This is the first time it had pushed the idea. Back in GE2004, they could not wait to splash colorful pictures of large crowds turning up for BN candidates whenever that happened. Sour grapes this time around?

Finally, on 3 March the NST ran a story based on the findings of Media Monitors on mainstream coverage of the election campaign. Its headline said “Fair Coverage of Opposition” and the article took a swipe at the opposition for complaining about news blackout on them. Even though the BN had at least about 45 per cent positive coverage and the opposition had at best about 26 per cent positive coverage in the NST, the paper still considered it as having given fair coverage because neutral coverage was as high as about 45 per cent.

But that early monitor of the coverage was for 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22 February—before nomination day. Well, things sure changed quite dramatically as data on the past three days shows. Yes, the NST did not completely blacked out the opposition. But it can hardly be seen as really better given the highly negative coverage of the opposition and the extensive focus on and positive coverage of the BN in the last three days. A more apt description is the NST acknowledged the opposition only to try and shoot them down and bury them.