Utusan just doing job as government paper, the Straits Times says

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On Jun 2, 2013

(TMI) – The ST said Umno and Utusan are seen as so synonymous that criticism of Utusan is taken as criticism of Umno.

Utusan’s recent headlines, most notably “Apa lagi Cina mahu?” (What more do the Chinese want?), which appeared on May 7, and “Chinese tsunami”, on May 8, reflected the apparent betrayal felt by many Umno members in the wake of Election 2013, Singapore’s the Straits Times (ST) reported today.

However, other prominent figures who spoke to the broadsheet said it demonstrated an unnecessary racialisation of what they felt was a voting pattern more accurately explained as an urban-rural divide.

“I felt very disturbed when I saw the headline,” Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah, Umno’s former Temerloh MP, was quoted as saying. “Why were we so angry?”

“Umno did well in the 13th general election. Even though I lost, I felt thankful that Umno did better than in 2008. So why this headline?”

Utusan was once staffed by political activists fighting for independence from British rule and has long been a champion of Malay rights. But now, critics say, it has gone overboard in its defence of Umno, to the point of fomenting racism and intolerance.

Hata Wahari, an Utusan journalist for 16 years until he was fired in April 2011 for criticising the newspaper’s editorial policies, told ST the daily was not so strident during prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s tenure.

“Before 2008, you would not write off Utusan as a government propaganda machine,” he was quoted as saying. “But now it doesn’t question the government’s policies any more, it only acts as a propaganda tool for Umno and to slam the opposition.”

The newspaper’s defenders, however, counter that they see no difference between Utusan’s defence of Umno, the country’s biggest Malay party with 3.5 million members, and the sometimes incendiary commentaries in Chinese- and Tamil-language papers.

“Utusan is just doing its job as the government newspaper,” said Nazrul Azizi, a management consultant in Penang. “Malays must have a channel to express their sentiments.”