the(new)mediaslut

It seems the Malaysian ruling government just cannot trust the media, traditional and new.

In the last elections, they blame new media for the votes lost. Now they are banning the Press from entering Parliament.

Wrote politician-blogger Jeff Ooi,

I saw and I heard from my vantage point as a Member of Parliament on HOW the Press Corp was treated as potential triggers for security issues in the country’s supreme building for law-making. Whoever that ordered the sanction against the Press Corp citing security as a rationale is plain stupid.

Malaysiakini quoted the Speaker of Malaysia parliament to say, ”

“Since when Bagan (Guan Eng) and Batu Gajah (Fong) are interested to become the editors?” he asked. “How do we know whether those showing the press tag are indeed journalists?”

Lack of trust with the Press? Again, how do Malaysians know if the politicians entering parliament are the real politicians?

Rocky’s bru has highlighted that the Malaysia Press Corp boycotted today’s parliament in protest over the new ruling.

What do you call a super-sized Big Mac?

A Mega Mac meal, of course.

It is available in Malaysia for a limited time only.

Four beef patties in a normal Big Mac burger going for RM13.50 for a medium sized meal.

Had to share the other two beef patties with friends to watch the waist..

Found this interesting post by MrSmith2 who hoped his post would be lesson for the Malaysia’s BN party.

I guess it relates to leaders everywhere.

From MrSmith2,

When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.
(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum , Philadelphia , March 22,2008)

In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal . It was a big failure.

That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference — where journalists from around the world were present — was at 7:45 am at ISRO’s satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India ]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself.

He took responsibility for the failure — he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization….

….The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite — and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, “You conduct the press conference today.”

I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

BN did spend over RM1 million in print ads for the last election as Nielsen estimated that the political coalition spend RM9.8 million on print ads in Feb 08 alone.

Wrote Marketing-Interactive,

Barisan Nasional was the third highest ad spender in February 2008 at RM9.8 million, according to Nielsen.

Earlier, Marketing reported Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M) estimates BN spent 7.68% of its budget of RM94.8 million on print ads (RM7.3 million). TI-M also estimates opposition party PKR spent 0.07% (RM0.03 million) of its budget of RM36.8 million, while DAP spent 0.57% (RM0.12 million) of RM19.5 million, and PAS did not spend anything on print ads. The estimated advertisement cost is also based on normal advertisement rates.

We know now that BN not only lost a few seats, it also lost control over some states.

While the politicians are looking at blogs to reach out to their new audience, does the election also shows that print ads are starting to be ineffective?

But the Singapore government are worried that the free medium online could lead to corruption when the Prime Minster said “Politics might also become tainted by graft if parties have to spend large sums to campaign online” but Mr Want argues that the free stuff online actually reduces the possibility of corruption.

Wrote Mr Wang,

It is very difficult to see how one can spend large sums of money campaigning online. In Malaysia’s recent elections, the Internet played a huge role in influencing voters. Yet practically all the Internet activity took place via Blogger, Wordpress, Youtube and other completely free Internet platforms.

Contrast this with campaigning offline. You would have to spend money printing and distributing posters; placing advertisements in traditional newspapers; hiring lorries and drivers to ferry candidates around the country to meet the electorate; and making large-scale logistics arrangements for election rallies. That won’t be cheap.

Anyway, suppose we accept PM Lee’s strange logic - that politics might become tainted by corruption if parties have to spend large sums to campaign online. It must then follow that since traditional, offline campaigning costs much more money, it is even more likely to lead to corruption.

Malaysia Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad has attributed the huge loses in the recent election to his party neglect of “cyber-campaigning”. 

Wrote Channel NewsAsia,

“We certainly lost the Internet war, the cyber-war,” Abdullah said in a speech to an investment conference.

“It was a serious misjudgement. We made the biggest mistake in thinking that it was not important,” he said.

“We thought that the newspapers, the print media, the television was supposed to be important, but the young people were looking at SMS and blogs.” 

Will Malaysia bloggers want to be friends with a  government who “vilified” them before the elections?

Only time will tell.

“Why are you launching such a stupid product?”

Fortunately (or unfortunately), the question posed by a chinese newspaper editor was only for the ears of media who sat through the whole farce of a press con (complete with launch gambit involving kids from an orphanage) and gathered together right after to bitch about it.

The product in question is a Malaysian-branded smartbook (a kind of net top that Intel is promoting) and also heard was, “Yea lar…why are they doing it for?”

Similar in specs to the popular ASUS eeePC, this particular smartbook is instead narrowing their potential market to students and more especially kindergarten kids. The result is a toy-like 7-inch or 9-inch notebook complete with kid-safe features like rounded corners and not much else.

Not even a single parental control or some sort of guidance software.

Other features include Wi-Fi, 512MB, 40GB HDD or 2GB NAND Flash memory aaaaaand… a Linux OS.

There is option to upgrade to a very trimmed-down Windows XP Starter Edition for RM99 and when asked if the specs could support a full-blown Windows XP OS, the rep claims that it can.

If it really IS able to support at least Windows XP Home Edition, I would consider getting one. But at same time I don’t want people to mistake that I’m using my niece’s or nephew’s toy!

Such a shame.

Newsweek has an exposure on how Indonesian workers are trapped in a situation where working for USD540 for three years is their only fruit of labour.

Wrote Newsweek,

It’s a typical Malaysian company, one of many small makers of the cast-aluminum bodies for hard-disk drives used in just about every name-brand machine on the market. But that’s precisely the problem: it’s a typical Malaysian company. About 60 percent of Local Technic’s 160 employees are from outside Malaysia—and a company executive says he pities those guest workers. “They have been fooled hook, line and sinker,” he says, asking not to be named because others in the business wouldn’t like his talking to the press. “They have been taken for a ride.”

It’s not Local Technic’s fault, he insists: sleazy labor brokers outside the country tricked the workers into paying huge placement fees for jobs that yield a net income close to zero. “They say they were promised 3,000 ringgits [$950] a month,” the manager says. “How can we pay that? If we did, we would be bankrupt in no time.”

Usually, I don’t post about my personal life but when my mother-in-law makes a comment on her perception on media, mainstream or social, it is too hard to resist the temptation.

I was showing my father-in-law some of the Malaysian blogs that covered the recent election.

As they were Malaysians, it wasn’t a surprised that my father-in-law paid quite an attention to what was written on them.

My parents-in-law arn’t the most computer illiterate around and their perception of their sons using the computer only to play games, which is only sometimes true.

My father-in-law was pointing to every word on the screen and reading them aloud. Because of his bad eyesight, I had to increase the fonts on the Firefox browser to +3.

After ever post, he would give his own verbal personal comments about the post.

Here’s when my mother-in-law decided to chiped-in.

“Only the news written on the web is the unedited truth,” my mother-in-law commented in Cantonese.

“The newspaper is too edited by unseen hands that I wonder if that is the true news.”

By the way, Rockybru has a new post on about a mainstream media french kissing new media. The way he describes it, I say its incest!

I am a journalist in Malaysia. And a certain post at http://www.aggromonkey.com/index.php?itemid=25 got me thinking really hard.

Especially since I’m a member of the industry being mentioned in that post, the author’s words struck a chord with me. I understand where she is coming from, and at the same time I also have the privilege of being in close proximity with said author. I DO encourage you to read it as it’s definitely entertaining. And here are my thoughts about them and more:

The first few years of covering tech made me realise that the scope of questions were often too narrow. Specs, model numbers, speeds etc. It’s a dull routine and a few million of my brain cells lay down to die just thinking about it. So, just imagine how much worse the damage from confining yourself to that little space for years, really is. Add on the aggravation of the ad sales department who are really only just doing their job the only way they know how, and the vendors/advertisers who “bully” them to having their every whim fulfilled. Who and what pays for it? The editorial team and its integrity.

Also I was/am working in a tough area called tech that silo-ed itself from other areas, other areas that could help it become so much more interesting than the mundane questions that were being asked at press conferences. For example, business and tech makes for a very interesting combo. Simple illustration: sales and revenue and other financial figures might give you a good idea of what’s in store products-wise. This is just one example. Imagine the many more.

But some seemed to think there was just no need for all this. And I could be wrong here, but the same people also may have the mistaken view that reporters ask too many seemingly stupid questions because they love the attention. Well, another way of looking at it - these reporters may be making them look bad. Can you step up, please?

What more can a reporter working in the industry, do for the industry that to their eyes, seems to have a “few” problems? Why in fact, should they even care? Simply because they are just a small part of a bigger whole, a community if you can call it that, which hasn’t achieved its potential and can do much, much, much MORE.

Tech isn’t cattle that can be prodded or pushed. I wish. Instead it’s an industry that is supposed to be intelligent and curious. Not that it isn’t, but it’s hard not to be beaten down by the realities of the local publishing scene (bowing down too many times to the advertising dollar), to just accept your fate and “go with the flow”. Sounds a lot like our political scene at one time, huh? At one time also this industry was even cooperative. I think it still is. But, there’s only so much that a handful of people can do. Maybe they’ve learned. And moved on.

There is also this one para in the blog entry that goes:

“Some people think it’s cool to be putting their subjects on the spot. Hello, who made you Larry King? This isn’t Dateline. This is a press conference you’re sharing with at least a dozen other publications. You think it makes you look cool to make your subject uncomfortable with what you think are ‘tough’ questions? No, you look like you’re desperate. A cornered subject will be defensive - what’s wrong with making some of your questions open-ended? Get them relaxed, calm and they’d be more likely to open up than if you hammer them for responses. You won’t get your scoop in the middle of a crowd.”

From the paras before it, I think what/who the Aggromonkey blogger sees as idiotic or desperate or attention-seeking, might actually have a good reason behind it.

And as for putting vendors on the spot during a live conference… I’d love to see more of that happening! And with cooperative action from others in the media, it can!!! At least there’s something exciting to really look forward to!!! Sigh… just wishful thinking, I know…

But somehow it seems to be better than embarassing vendors in your blog instead and say that you are doing it cos “I am a member of the media and they really ought to treat me better than canteen food!!” with hissy fit and all. Or, criticising “evil empires” and other tech companies’ along with their products and services because you “can” and because you like to play at being a journalist when you don’t even make the effort to find out about them. Or attend enough (if any) of their press conferences.

In any case, it’s nice to know that the Aggromonkey blogger really cared enough about this particular subject called “press conferences” to bring it up.

And here be another “stewpid” question that I hop someone ken anser for me - Wat ekzaklee do you call the journalist who sencors negatif komments abt themselfs from there blog?
.
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I’d take bad grammar and spelling over that, any day.

David Lian, one of the commenter of this blog, has an interesting post about how Gerakan, one of the Malaysian political party that lost heavily in the recent elections, is looking to blogging to respond to criticisms made by other blogs.

David hopes that this doesn’t mean Gerakan resulting to “fake” blogging.

Wrote David,

The number one thing a blog has to be -especially a blog coming from a political party - is authentic, real and about issues, not being critical for the sake of criticism. The thing is: you can blog all you want, but who’s going to read? The people who read blogs aren’t reading it because they support the Opposition (contrary to common perception), they are reading it because they find the person posting makes a fair argument, is worth listening to, and is well-versed in issues surrounding Malaysians.

This blogger agrees with David.

The new communication whiz at Gerakan must not forget that bloggers won’t have much kind words for fake bloggers.

Blogs are just another medium of communications. It will be the words, photos, audio and video that will relay the message to the readers.

Furthermore, starting a blog for communication purposes will also see readers reacting and commenting to the message on the blog. Is Gerakan ready to open comments which can be critical of the posts? Or are they going to just approve comments that their ears want to hear only?

Take for an example Lim Kit Siang DAP’s decision to boycott the PAS Menteri Bersa of Perak which Kit Siang posted.

This lead to blogger Rockybru’s chagrin and resulted in Kit Siang’s clarification of his post.

Kit Siang’s blog is currently unaccessible at the time of this posting though.

Malaysia’s Barisan Nasional (BN) was reported to have spent RM1million onprint ads in newspapers telling readers to vote for them during the campaigning period.

Malaysians also their dailies flooded with “Vote for BN” ads and it intensified as it got closer to polling day.

Expenditure by BN on TV and radio ads have not been included.

The Opposition, however, was reported to have spend much less. On a given day, the Opposition would only one page ad compared to the 16 pages from BN.

Yet, in Malaysia Elections 2008, they suffered their worst defeats since 1969, losing five states in the process and failed to regain one.

Compared to the elections in 2004, the opposition only managed to win one state.

In Malaysia Elections 2008, the Opposition had five bona-fide bloggers contesting seats against the ruling party, who chose the mainstream media to get their message out.

Bloggers Jeff Ooi won Penang’s Jelutong seat, Tony Pua for PJ Utara in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, NikNazmi for Seri Setia and Elizabeth Wong for Bukit Lanjung.

Ironically, Blogger Badrul Hisham Shaharin lost to a newbie blogger, who took to blogging when the campaigning started.

Except for Jeff Ooi, most of these blogger/politicians hosted their blogs at Blogspot.com and Wordpress.com.

It would have cost them only zero Ringgit to setup their blogs. Yet, they won.

Only Jeff Ooi’s blog is on a hosted domain, but that wouldn’t cost him millions to set up.

Now that the bloggers are in Parliament, they will be tested to prove themselves on how they going to use the medium to the benefit their constituents.

The title of this post was “stolen” from David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly which this blog played a part in the book.

David highlights how big brands are spending millions on mainstream media advertising which they can do now for pittance with new media to reach out to their buyers directly.

This election is an example of the effectiveness new media is in today’s Internet age.

Of course, the mainstream media will start do surveys which will show how readers find them to be more credible than bloggers.

That is so passé.

New media may not be deemed credible but this election has proven its influence.
Influential enough to win votes at no monetary costs.

Is Malaysia going to tighten its grip on the Internet?

I personally doubt so as the boasted Google’s interest to host a data farm in Cyberjaya depends on the government earlier promised not to control the Internet.

Other MNCs might also be turned away from investing in Malaysia if controls were made.

Isn’t the Internet such an animal of contradiction?

There is no doubt that the Malaysian Elections 2008 belongs to the opposition as they have denied the ruling party’s 2/3 majority rule, but only one of the two bloggers won a seat to represent Malaysians in Parliament.

According to Malaysiakini, Jeff Ooi has won the seat of Jelutong in Penang.

It will be interesting to see blogger Jeff Ooi take on the establishment for the next 4-5 years. As a parliamentarian,  it won’t be surprising if his first task is to take on the telcos to come up with measures to counter spam SMS.  Jeff frequently post about how telcos were doing very little to counter spam SMS.

However, Badrul Hisham Sharin, after a recount, lost his bid to represent the people of Rembau in Negeri Sembilan.

His adversary, the son-in-law of the current Prime Minster of Malaysia,  won with a 5,740 majority.

Malaysia’s mainstream media, New Straits Times and The Star, have reported Malaysia Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has told Malaysians to accept the results of the elections.

Wrote The Star,

Pak Lah: This is how democracy works

Remember the Malaysian Information Minster, Zainuddin Maidin (ZAM), who lost his cool during the Al Jazeera interview after the BERSIH protest in November 2007?

Malaysiakini has reported on 10.15pm that Zam might have lost his seat in Sungei Petani.

However, the news is still unofficial.

If you missed the Al Jazeera interview, it has been immortalised in Youtube.

Check out Malaysiakini.com for a Twitter-like update on the the results of the Malaysian Elections.

Jeff Ooi, the blogger contesting in the elections, is not only projected to win the seat in Jelutong, he might be the “government” for Penang as the Democratic Action Party is expected to win majority seats in Penang.

Wrote RockyBru,

Penang (bridge) is falling down, falling down

Welcome to DAP country. I’ve just arrived at the Penang Free School where the decision on Jelutong parliamentary seat will be announced.The whole island is talking about it. Penang is falling. BN is losing big in its chairman’s own home state.

Jeff Ooi described the results in Penang as Tsuamic.

Wrote Jeff,

Makkal sakti! It’s a TSUNAMI result for Penang.

Stay calm. No victory parade. Don’t give any party the reason to declare an emergency.

Stay calm. Stay cool. Stay home.

The other blogger, Kadrul Hisham Shahri, who is up against Khairy Jamaluddin, the son-in-law of PM Abdullah Badawi, seem to have won the Rembau seat with just 114 votes.

Rockybru posted that a recount has been ordered.

It is very interesting what you say against bloggers in the past can come back to haunt you in cyberspace.

The Star wrote,

Umno Youth deputy chief Khairy Jamaluddin, who is contesting the Rembau parliamentary seat, has joined many other general election candidates in the political fray by entering cyberspace to reach out to voters.

Cool, a young Malaysian politician finally sees the value and credibility of the blog-o-sphere.

Wait a minute, wasn’t this Malaysian politician. the son-in-law of current Malaysia Prime Minster Abdullah Badawi, once described bloggers as primates?

maverickysm.blogspot.com reminds us that it was this Khairy who once described Malaysian bloggers as “monkeys”.

Monkey see, monkey do?

The current Malaysian elections have raised one of its more controversial issues ever.

Jeff Ooi, the Malaysian blogger, who is running for a seat in Penang, Malaysia, has highlighted that he has copies of letters that showed Motorola only extended its stay in Penang because it was offered a RM1billion police radio project.

In return, Motorola would invest RM350 million in research at the plant in Penang.

Jeff calls RM1billion for RM350million deal as exchanging “rice for sweet potatoes”, a Hokkien term used to describe an unfair deal.

Wrote Jeff,

For the 2008 version “exchanging rice for sweet potatoes’, we gave Koh Tsu Koon a 48-hour ultimatum to clarify his role in giving away RM1 billion of taxpayers’ money, and in return, to get an American company to stay put in Penang, packaged in a RM350 million “reinvestment”.

Failing which, the company will pull out from Penang, and withdraw totally from Malaysia as a form of “necessary business strategic response” to the market environment in the country.

….We did what we had we had to do, but Malaysiakini beat us to us by one day. The companies that Tsu Koon helped are Motorola and Comintel, Malaysiakini reported. We confirmed it. Read on.

This raises the question for Motorola. Was Motorola selected for the RM1billion project because of its quality products, or was it selected because of a political reason?

I wonder what the reaction of competitors who bid for the same project would be.

The attack on bloggers has, predictably, began.

With Malaysian bloggers running for state and parliament in the upcoming elections, especially as the Opposition, that attack on bloggers from their opponents have started.

Wrote Jeff Ooi who is running in the elections,

My opponent has started to attack me and question the validity of bloggers in general.

On Page A14 of Guang Ming Daily (Feb 27, evening edition), my opponent whipped all bloggers in a broad sweep by stating that “bloggers hide behind computers and live in a virtual world”.

He said “people could only imagine but could never feel the sincerity (of bloggers) beyond the computer”.

Jeff countered by highlighting that it is this virtual world, called the Internet, that he managed to raise RM85,000 in 11 days to fund his campaign.

Would people who could never feel the sincerity (of bloggers) beyond the computer but can only imagine it go all out to donate such a huge amount to a blogger’s election campaign?

Strangely, Barrack Obama is also using a blog to spread his campaign messages for the US presidential elections.

The irony of this is that many still use blogs as an online dairy to update their friends and relatives on what they are doing in real life.

One young executive once told this blogger. “I started blogging so that I can let my parents in India know what I am doing in Singapore. This pacifies them as they have wild thoughts that I could be drug runner in this island state.”

Lack of sincerity or the lack of understanding of why bloggers blog?

Let the battles begin!

This blog recently wrote about Jeff Ooi use of his blog as a medium to collect funds for his upcoming campaign in the Malaysian elections.

The aim of the post wasn’t to advertise Jeff Ooi’s call for donations but to highlight the use of new media to reach out to Jeff’s electorate.

Cowboy Caleb, a fellow Malaysian, has gone a step further to make use of Singapore’s popular blog portal, Tommorrow.sg, to call for fellow Malaysians to donate to Jeff Ooi’s campaign.

Wrote Cowboy Caleb,

To Malaysians out there, you know deep down in your heart that something is terribly wrong with your motherland. Do close your eyes and shut your ears because you are not in Malaysia. Your brothers and sisters are suffering and being marginalized while the corrupt grow fat and swollen off the blood, sweat and tears of the poor.

Cowboy’s actions might mean well for Jeff, but it might also lead to the requirement of Tomorrow.sg to be registered as a political site with Singapore’s Media Development Authority.

From MDA’s Internet Industry Guidelines:

9. Content Providers do not need to register with MDA, unless their web pages are primarily set up to promote political or religious causes.

Registration entails giving particulars about the website. Registration does not mean the promotion of political or religious causes is not allowed.

It merely serves to emphasize the need for the content providers to be responsible in what they say.

This is important, given the multi-racial, multi-religious nature of our society.

However, there could be some question marks if MDA would request that Tomorrow.sg be registered as the post in question is a call to support a candidate in a Malaysian election.

Still, by promoting a Malaysian politician, does this also mean that Tomorrow.sg is also open to promote political parties in Singapore or from the world?

Cowboy might argue that Tomorrow.sg was never set up to promote political or religious cause, but the same argument was delivered by Sintercom and it was still forced to register the site.

From Singapore-Window.org,

Sintercom has been operating for eight years, and its alternative forums to Singapore’s prevailing political orthodoxies have been held out, even by the government, as evidence that Singapore’s strict political culture has been relaxing. Singaporean ministers are known to have participated in Sintercom’s polite and mostly anonymous debates. As Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has reminded Singaporeans, they live in a “funky” place. And he quotes Time magazine when doing so.

That was two years ago and the Internet was booming. But an election now is looming in the republic, and it seems the government is taking no chances, despite its stated aspiration that Singapore become a media and information hub for the region.

Is this blogger asking you to take down the post at Tomorrow.sg?

No. This blogger is just concerned that Tomorrow.sg will be tasked to be registered and registering also means that you, Cowboy Caleb, as one of the editors of Tomorrow.sg would have to register your identity with the authorities, an identity that you have guarded its anonymity to requesting that fellow friends do not post photos of you online.

Also, this blogger hopes Tomorrow.sg need not have to register with MDA either.