Is FMT (Free Malaysia Today) neutral, friend or foe to DAP?
TERESA KOK
It seems to me that for the past few weeks, the online news portal Free Malaysia Today are on a DAP-bashing spree. From the article on my supposed lust for fame and media coverage (‘YB Press’) – which was subsequently adequately rebutted – to articles out today on DAP’s apparent ‘arrogance’ in Sabah, it is apparent that FMT is out to target DAP alone as the party with the most short-comings among all the BN, Pakatan and Independent parties in the country.
During a time of BN’s scandals costing millions of public funds, the NFC debacle, to the failures of MIC as ‘a party for Indians’, it appears that only DAP issues get the limelight in this ‘neutral’ paper. Today (17 Feb 2012) alone there are 5 to 6 articles on DAP which are more negative than neutral (or not accurate and biased in my opinion).
Further, it seems to be a recent trend that articles on DAP ‘issues’ on FMT do not include the immediate response or quotes from the subject of the article. An example is the story on Feb 13 alleging a DAP municipal councillor of corruption – where the right to respond was only published on Feb 16.
The first of such example I noticed of course was the YB Press article on me where there was no attempt by the FMT journalist nor its editorial chiefs to get my immediate reaction or comments to the accusations before the article was printed. FMT failed in its very basic journalistic rule of getting both sides of the story before publishing a piece. And there is no excuse of me not being available as I am contactable by mobile, email account(s), my blog, facebook, twitter, office, assistants, (need i go on?).
