The media curse of the political owner
By uppercaise
When your patron’s future is at stake it is not unusual for weird journalism (to put it kindly) to make an appearance, in big stories and small. Here’s a small example from the Star and a medium-sized example
from the NST.
On Tuesday, in the midst of the MCA’s turmoil, the MCA-owned Star came out with a small story that was obviously aimed at propping up the embattled MCA president.
On ordinary days, no editor would have allowed such a story to see print. But these are not ordinary days. So the Star carried a story about an opinion poll that allegedly proves Ong Tee Keat's popularity. But there are more questions than answers.
It doesn't say where the poll was done. Was this reported? Where? When was this poll? Who conducted it? What was the poll for? What were the questions? What were the results? Who were the respondents? ‣ See Community wants Ong to stay on
It's astounding. What happened to the basic 4W1H formula? — who, what, where, when, how?
At any other time heads would roll (or a couple of heads knocked together) for something as incomplete as this. Even in ordinary times people complain of the MCA bias in the Star; at a time of crisis, people will be watching even more carefully.
Read more at: http://uppercaise.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/the-media-curse-of-the-political-owner/
