A bit more on the Media Prima war

I heard that former DAP vice-chairman Tunku Aziz had a press conference yesterday.

He was again repeating his demand for Media Prima chairman FD Iskandar to sue him or resign.

As most of you all probably know by now, he was accusing Iskandar of telling lies about him to PM DS Najib Razak and based on those lies wanted to remove "independent minded" editors from the media group.

Ok, just rewriting that makes me feel tired

Never mind, for more background you should just read this past posting of mine,

• Media Prima at war

You can also read this theory of mine on the origin of the whole stupid quarrel,

• FD Iskandar's trump card

I guess, Tunku Aziz needed the press conference as he has to renew the attack on Iskandar and broaden its coverage by the media.

Heard the press conference was attended by several journalists, some of whom were from the Media Prima group.

Didn't bother to check on the stories coming out of it though, but I'm quite sure it won't come out in the Media Prima's newspapers and television channels.

After all, it's their chairman Tunku Aziz was whacking.

I also received this rather interesting comment on the matter yesterday evening,

azizhassan20 December 2016 at 20:08

I will touch only on the print side. The decline in most of the NSTP's titles became obvious in the late 1980s and for many2 years, despite changes in editorship, failed to check the drop. For the most part there were no compelling plans. If there were, the plans were dropped into the waste bin by succeeding editors. U can't really blame the present management team bcos the decline has been too big. Once u lose your market share, it's almost impossible to go back up, especially when the decline happened over a long period of time.

But following Malaysianisation in 1972, not a single of the chairman had tried to interfere with the editorial management, knowing fully well that the appointments of the editorial number 1 comes from the Umno president or via his nominee/appointee. In fact so does the appointment of the chairman!!! Thus it would be naive fro any chairman to want to know differently now, because it's not as if the Umno leadership is not aware of the decline or the reasons for it. Yes the chairman/board must answer to the shareholders but it is what the controlling shareholder wants that decides, no two ways about it. Umno must surely be aware of the business perspective and the position Media Prima is in, just as it must be aware of the dire financial position of the Utusan Group, another of its business interests.

I think the commentator really know the subject matter very well.

If I understand it correctly, the decline of the Umno-linked newspapers started after Operasi Lalang in 1987, when the then perceived pro-opposition The Star, Sin Chew and Watan were suspended.

Watan didn't survive the suspension, but The Star after that took over from NST as the number one English daily while Sin Chew took over from Nanyang Siang Pao as the best selling Chinese newspaper.

Since then, Umno-linked newspapers such as NST started their decline and it continues till this day.

The funny thing was that , as correctly put by the commentator, the Umno leadership know about what ails those newspapers which are friendly to them but did nothing to improve the situation.

It's known to almost everyone that the party bosses demanded certain kind of stories to be published which didn't help the newspapers to be good business entities or even make their products reader-friendly.

As I was told, things apparently got worse as the years went by.

While back then the top editors only entertain requests by the PM, or at most his deputy, these days they seem to be scared of even state assemblymen, division chiefs and bloggers.

I know of an incident several years ago when a bureau chief of a newspaper was almost suspended just because a prominent blogger complained to the big time editor about a small mistake in his story.

Well, do Umno leaders care about all these?

I don't think so.

Probably they just want to wake up in the morning and before breakfast read the newspapers to feel good about themselves.

Some of them may even enjoy ordering the editors around.

It probably doesn't matter to them that most Malaysians don't really read the newspapers anymore.

People got smart phones these days, okay.

Maybe the editors knew this and they designed the contents of their newspapers just to serve that purpose.

Keep the Umno leaders happy. The rest don't really matter.

Actually, I don't really blame the editors as they need to keep their job to feed their family or take their girlfriends for holiday to Pattaya.

I would probably do the same if I'm in their position.

Hey, like most of those editors, I'm not even an Umno member. Why should I care too much about perjuangan and stuff?

Ethics, ideals, dignity....do they really matter?

We are just humans after all.

Anyway, as I put it in my theory, that Iskandar guy was probably trying to change the whole thing.

Well, good for him....that's if he survive lah.

Oh, by the way, someone suggested to me yesterday that Iskandar came under attack because he is a sympathiser  of TS Muhyiddin Yassin.

I think that's weird because he was appointed as Media Prima chairman in September last year.

The Najib-Mahathir war started much earlier. Why then appointed him to the post in the first place if he is a Muhyiddin's guy?

Another thing, if Iskandar was just being silly in whatever he is doing as there's no way he is going to win the fight, why the people attacking him have to make the whole thing public such as in yesterday's press conference?

That's so unnecessary, I think.

If I'm them, I wouldn't be bothered.

PM is on my side what. Sure win one.