An unfortunate decision to suspend The Edge

I have previously wrote this,

Shutting down The Edge will not help

Well, they actually did it today,

The Edge weekly, daily suspended for 3 months from July 27

It's too bad then.

Many will now regard The Edge people as heroes.

I'm bracing for the backlash.

I think it's the wrong move.

For me, to fight The Edge, the government should instead counter their "lies" via pro-establishment news outlets.

Of course those pro-establishment news outlets must be allowed to be credible and not excessively controlled till they were regarded as nothing more than mouthpieces of the government.

Credibility in the eyes of the public is the most important in this war of perceptions.

This is something the media handlers of the government need to understand.

They can't have lackeys to head those media organizations.

They should instead get real journalists who understand journalism and observe its ethics to convince the people that the government is doing the right things.

The government has no choice but to do this if they want the people to believe them.

After all, this is the age of information technology where the people have options from where they could choose their news sources.

If they think a newspaper is not credible because it excessively promotes the government's policies to a point of being ridiculous, then they rather read even an insignificant anonymous blog operated by a silly but cute girl.

Shutting down a newspaper, no matter how dishonest and unethical it is, will not help.

Back then at the height of racial tension which resulted with Operation Lalang in 1987, three newspapers, The Star, Sinchew Daily and Watan were suspended similar to what happened now with The Edge.

MCA-own The Star went on right after its suspension to become the number one English daily in the country, overtaking the then more established New Straits Times (NST).

The Star's circulation at the moment is about 300,000 copies per day while NST's at between 60,000 and 70,000.

Sin Chiew also became the number one Chinese newspaper after the suspension and now neck-to-neck with China Press with circulation of over 300,000 copies per day.

The Malay-own Watan, however never recover from the suspension and had since ceased publication.

Well, The Edge is Chinese-own.

So, I think it will survive and highly likely thrives after this suspension.

Anyway, I think it was extra silly for the authorities just to suspend The Edge Weekly and Daily.

The publication CEO Ho Kay Tat said,  
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"To our readers and fellow Malaysians, you can continue to read our work through our digital platforms like The Edge Markets, The Edge Property, The Malaysian Insider and edgy.my,"

If the authorities feel they have no choice but to be nasty, at least do it properly lah.

Just shut down the whole bloody thing. Don't let them come back to haunt you later.

As what the Malays say,

Alang-alang menyelok pekasam biarlah kepangkal lengan.

You just suspend them, they say you are evil. Then, may as well close down the whole group permanently.

But then again, the US president Obama is coming to town again later this year. He may not like my suggestion very much.