MALAYSIANS DO NOT MAKE ENOUGH NEWS TO FILL A NEWSPAPER!
…OR ARE THE PUBLISHERS BUSY PROMOTING OTHER COUNTRIES?
By Mansor Puteh
(NOTE: This is a study on how Malaysian journalism has failed the country and its society. It is also a study on why Old Malaysian Journalism is bad for them, and how the KDN permits of those publications ought to be withdrawn, because they are not serving Malaysia and Malaysians, but foreign countries.
And what is needed badly for the country to develop and to reshape its psyche and those of the young and new generation is for the New Malaysian Journalism to be created, for without which there can never be a New Malaysia.
Old Malaysian Journalism and Broadcasting, for that matter, should be reshaped to support our own ideology and cultural development and not to serve foreign countries.
The editors and publishers of such publications ought to be retrained or be pensioned off for they had shown their penchant for things alien and disdain for things Malaysia. Many Malaysians have become pseudo-Americans with many Chinese and Indians (or Tamils) who seem to be still stranded in Hong Kong and Chennai and who have not actually arrived in Malaysia.
This is what happens when most editors and journalists do not have formal training in journalism with some who are not familiar with the history of the country to know who they should be serving.
MALAYSIAN JOURNALISM AND BROADCASTING TODAY ARE BAD FOR MALAYSIA, BUT GOOD FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES!)
* * * * * *
If Malaysians suffer from an inferiority complex, this is what’s causing it because they take it from the publishers, editors and journalists who also suffer from it and who are proud of the fact that they belong elsewhere and not in this country.
It is sad, but true; that Malaysians do not seem to make enough news to fill a newspaper. And in this regard, we also do not seem to be able to produce enough programs to show on our television and in our cinema-halls that we have to bring them into the country from elsewhere.
And we ended up publishing and broadcasting anything and showing anything in the cinemas which benefit the others and not ourselves, and in the process continuing to enslave the Malaysian public in the post-colonial era.
It is like them saying, it is good to be slaves and lackeys of other countries and not be the master of our own destiny and future.
So if one were to see the English, Mandarin, Tamil and even Malay papers and magazines chances are, one would think that the publishers are foreigners, who had managed to get the KDN publishing permits to publish their publications in order to purely promote their countries.
Don’t those in the Home Ministry or Kementerian Dalam Negeri know that they have given the KDN permits to those who are bent on not serving the interests of the country, but those of the others, especially the Americans, westerners, Hong Kongers, Indians (in India; or mostly Tamil Nadu), but not Malaysia.
Haven’t those in the ministry realized that the country’s press had long been infiltrated by foreign elements that were out to promote the propaganda for these foreign countries, and right under their noses?
It is sad how some Malaysians are willing to serve the interests of such countries, unpaid and unrecognized by the leaders of those countries.
I can imagine if there is a small column in any paper in Hong Kong, Tamil Nadu or America that writes on stories on Malaysia everyday that the editors of these papers would definitely be feted by the Malaysian government and that they would have been given the honorific titles of all types.
But the probability of such a thing happening is remote. No paper outside of Malaysia, save for Singapore that wants to publish anything on Malaysia, unless if there is something negative happening.
Singapore papers normally have the ‘Across the Causeway’ column, but nothing else, where they write or publish stories on Malaysia.
News on Malaysia and Malaysians are mostly of the negative type surrounding the same small group of people who are in politics who normally say things which sound like are being repeated again and again. Yet, the editors did not find it trite or tiring to publish such comments from the same characters, who look like they are people from an earlier era, and who do not belong in today’s era.
Or is it because those who publish the newspapers and magazines and run television stations and also radios are more interested to do the bidding for the others, especially if they are Chinese and Indians who find it more fascinating for them to over-promote news and other stories and programs and even films from their Mother and Sisterlands?
This may be the case.
Worse, even the Malay and English-language papers are also doing the same by over-promoting stories from other countries, with some even have regular columns where they publish entertainment gossips from America and on characters who are not known generally by the Malaysian readers and public.
Everything American or western seems to be important to them.
Is this what Malaysian journalism has become? It is Old Malayan Journalism which had become Old Malaysian Journalism, which has no real reason for being, since we are a new nation the last 52 years.
It is also ironic when one considers how during the British administration of Malaya, the English language papers did not over-promote things British. Most of the stories were on the Malayans and locals, with only the interesting and international news on other countries.
The Malay papers even went overboard by almost ignoring foreign news, especially the entertainment news, so no wonder the Old Malayan Cinema which was then based in Singapore were able to develop almost unhindered, by getting the right support from the Malay as well as non-Malay masses, who would flock to the cinemas where new Malay films then were being shown.
They did not have any compunction to call them Malay films; yet, the non-Malays could still find them interesting.
Today, despite some Malay film producers calling their films, ‘Malaysian films’, they are still not able to draw in the non-Malay crowd, most of whom now speak and write better in Malay than their parents and grandparents who could not speak or write in the language well, not having been educated in school.
All journalists and editors, therefore, must be forced to have a master’s degree in journalism from Malaysian or foreign universities so their level of reporting and news creation is further heightened.
This requirement is necessary so as to force those who want to go into journalism will know that it is not enough for them to be able to write, but they must also show greater sincerity in what they write, which only serve our country and no others, despite them having ancestors who were originally from other countries.
Malaysia can create better quality journalists, editors and publishers as well as broadcasters and filmmakers only if we look inside of us more than we look elsewhere.
By Mansor Puteh
(NOTE: This is a study on how Malaysian journalism has failed the country and its society. It is also a study on why Old Malaysian Journalism is bad for them, and how the KDN permits of those publications ought to be withdrawn, because they are not serving Malaysia and Malaysians, but foreign countries.
And what is needed badly for the country to develop and to reshape its psyche and those of the young and new generation is for the New Malaysian Journalism to be created, for without which there can never be a New Malaysia.
Old Malaysian Journalism and Broadcasting, for that matter, should be reshaped to support our own ideology and cultural development and not to serve foreign countries.
The editors and publishers of such publications ought to be retrained or be pensioned off for they had shown their penchant for things alien and disdain for things Malaysia. Many Malaysians have become pseudo-Americans with many Chinese and Indians (or Tamils) who seem to be still stranded in Hong Kong and Chennai and who have not actually arrived in Malaysia.
This is what happens when most editors and journalists do not have formal training in journalism with some who are not familiar with the history of the country to know who they should be serving.
MALAYSIAN JOURNALISM AND BROADCASTING TODAY ARE BAD FOR MALAYSIA, BUT GOOD FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES!)
* * * * * *
If Malaysians suffer from an inferiority complex, this is what’s causing it because they take it from the publishers, editors and journalists who also suffer from it and who are proud of the fact that they belong elsewhere and not in this country.
It is sad, but true; that Malaysians do not seem to make enough news to fill a newspaper. And in this regard, we also do not seem to be able to produce enough programs to show on our television and in our cinema-halls that we have to bring them into the country from elsewhere.
And we ended up publishing and broadcasting anything and showing anything in the cinemas which benefit the others and not ourselves, and in the process continuing to enslave the Malaysian public in the post-colonial era.
It is like them saying, it is good to be slaves and lackeys of other countries and not be the master of our own destiny and future.
So if one were to see the English, Mandarin, Tamil and even Malay papers and magazines chances are, one would think that the publishers are foreigners, who had managed to get the KDN publishing permits to publish their publications in order to purely promote their countries.
Don’t those in the Home Ministry or Kementerian Dalam Negeri know that they have given the KDN permits to those who are bent on not serving the interests of the country, but those of the others, especially the Americans, westerners, Hong Kongers, Indians (in India; or mostly Tamil Nadu), but not Malaysia.
Haven’t those in the ministry realized that the country’s press had long been infiltrated by foreign elements that were out to promote the propaganda for these foreign countries, and right under their noses?
It is sad how some Malaysians are willing to serve the interests of such countries, unpaid and unrecognized by the leaders of those countries.
I can imagine if there is a small column in any paper in Hong Kong, Tamil Nadu or America that writes on stories on Malaysia everyday that the editors of these papers would definitely be feted by the Malaysian government and that they would have been given the honorific titles of all types.
But the probability of such a thing happening is remote. No paper outside of Malaysia, save for Singapore that wants to publish anything on Malaysia, unless if there is something negative happening.
Singapore papers normally have the ‘Across the Causeway’ column, but nothing else, where they write or publish stories on Malaysia.
News on Malaysia and Malaysians are mostly of the negative type surrounding the same small group of people who are in politics who normally say things which sound like are being repeated again and again. Yet, the editors did not find it trite or tiring to publish such comments from the same characters, who look like they are people from an earlier era, and who do not belong in today’s era.
Or is it because those who publish the newspapers and magazines and run television stations and also radios are more interested to do the bidding for the others, especially if they are Chinese and Indians who find it more fascinating for them to over-promote news and other stories and programs and even films from their Mother and Sisterlands?
This may be the case.
Worse, even the Malay and English-language papers are also doing the same by over-promoting stories from other countries, with some even have regular columns where they publish entertainment gossips from America and on characters who are not known generally by the Malaysian readers and public.
Everything American or western seems to be important to them.
Is this what Malaysian journalism has become? It is Old Malayan Journalism which had become Old Malaysian Journalism, which has no real reason for being, since we are a new nation the last 52 years.
It is also ironic when one considers how during the British administration of Malaya, the English language papers did not over-promote things British. Most of the stories were on the Malayans and locals, with only the interesting and international news on other countries.
The Malay papers even went overboard by almost ignoring foreign news, especially the entertainment news, so no wonder the Old Malayan Cinema which was then based in Singapore were able to develop almost unhindered, by getting the right support from the Malay as well as non-Malay masses, who would flock to the cinemas where new Malay films then were being shown.
They did not have any compunction to call them Malay films; yet, the non-Malays could still find them interesting.
Today, despite some Malay film producers calling their films, ‘Malaysian films’, they are still not able to draw in the non-Malay crowd, most of whom now speak and write better in Malay than their parents and grandparents who could not speak or write in the language well, not having been educated in school.
All journalists and editors, therefore, must be forced to have a master’s degree in journalism from Malaysian or foreign universities so their level of reporting and news creation is further heightened.
This requirement is necessary so as to force those who want to go into journalism will know that it is not enough for them to be able to write, but they must also show greater sincerity in what they write, which only serve our country and no others, despite them having ancestors who were originally from other countries.
Malaysia can create better quality journalists, editors and publishers as well as broadcasters and filmmakers only if we look inside of us more than we look elsewhere.
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