News portal The Malaysian Insight to suspend operations from Thursday

(Today Online) – News portal The Malaysian Insight (TMI) will be suspending its publication at 5pm on Thursday (March 29) until further notice.

Its editor and chief executive Jahabar Sadiq said that the company was in the process of “recalibrating the portal” to better serve its readers in the future.

“We would like to thank all discerning readers from Malaysia and abroad for their support and concern,” he said in a message posted on the news portal on Wednesday.

He added: “In the meantime, please read and follow news on Malaysia, and for those casting your ballots in the 14th general election, make a wise choice for a better Malaysia.”

Last week, Mr Jahabar had announced that the news portal will stop publication due to financial reasons.

In a note to TMI’s readers on March 23, Mr Jahabar said the year-old news website’s publications suspension is due to its missing of a “major milestone in starting a paywall” and as page views traffic has not reached the targeted critical mass.

“Hence, we need to review our direction, news operations and commercial viability.

“The decision to suspend publication in the interim is a difficult one, but was made due to the challenging financial environment faced by The Malaysian Insight and other media outlets,” he said in the statement published on TMI on Friday evening.

TMI was founded by Mr Jahabar in March last year. He is the former editor of The Malaysian Insider, which was shut down by its owner, The Edge Media Group, in March 2016.

Last month, Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok denied that he was funding TMI after allegations were made against him by pro-government blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin.

In a series of articles on the Malaysia Today website, the blogger accused Mr Kuok of financing TMI, of attempting to engineer the removal of the ruling government, and of seeking to install a Chinese government in Malaysia.