Everyone's talking about how our local medias spin stories, propagandas and what is and what not. How many of you actually understand what a spin is?
Malaysians are a gullible lot. Most buy into anything as long as it is presented in a way which they think carry weight. Which is why professional conmen love Malaysia.
Malaysians are major suckers - skim cepat kaya, MLMs, pyramid schemes, bomoh tipu duit, feng shui master scams etc. are aplenty in Malaysia. (Embarrassingly I form the statistics too). We are so easy that we must be internationally known because even Africans from the most remote part of Africa are making big bucks right here.
Our local medias know us Malaysians best. They put up whatever serves the purposes of their political masters and chances are some Malaysians will fall for it. I have had enough of Utusan - so let us not even give them any form of coverage here. Let us look at Malaysia's best selling newspaper - The Star.
This is what I picked from The Star on their 9 October 2009 edition.
It reads:
PETALING JAYA: A Merdeka Centre poll found that MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat was the preferred choice to lead the party instead of suspended deputy president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.
Almost one third (32.2% ) of the 273 respondents from the Chinese community indicated that they preferred Ong over Dr Chua who polled 5.1%.
Among the 146 Chinese respondents who said they cared about the MCA problem, 60% of them said their choice was Ong while 9.6% wanted Dr Chua.
The Merdeka Centre polled a total of 846 respondents of all races, who were asked for their views about leaders who were corrupt and marred by scandals.
It found that 64% of them strongly disagreed that a leader tainted by sex scandal could lead a major political party while 76% strongly disagreed that a leader charged with money politics in party elections should be allowed to contest in a by-election or general election.
The poll also asked for their perception of the problems faced by the MCA to which 64% of all Chinese respondents felt that it was an internal affair of the party. Asked on their views on MCA’s reforms, 39% of the 846 respondents in peninsular Malaysia felt that its leaders should give priority to resolving the in-fighting.
Another 27% of the respondents wanted the party to focus on regaining the confidence of all Malaysians, while 10% of them wanted the party to win back the confidence of the Chinese community.
The poll also touched on Barisan Nasional reforms, the PKFZ controversy and perceptions of Pakatan Rakyat. The respondents also felt that MCA leaders should concentrate on resolving in-fighting in the party the most.
About 34% of the respondents felt that unless Umno carried out reforms extensively, changes in other component parties would mean little.
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There we have it - a super spin! A spin may not be a lie but is it the ultimate truth?
Page 6 of the country's most read newspaper shouting and rallying for their political master, Ong Tee Keat, that he is the 'preferred' man to lead MCA.
But preferred by whom? One look and you would have thought that the Merdeka Centre has done their survey from all of Malaysia. Before you read any further, be known that I am not challenging the survey or method adopted by Merdeka Centre. The point I am trying to make is on the way The Star spins the survey results. After all, the country's No. 1 newspaper is reporting it.
Now if you read the article, you will find that only 846 people responded to the survey and only 32.2% of the 273 Chinese respondents agreed that OTK is the preferred choice.
We do not know how the 846 respondents responded to OTK being the preferred choice but logic tells me that it is not too good else The Star would have gone to town with it. So, their survey did not turn out to be as what they wanted it to be. What do you do? Look for corners that favor you of course.
The Star decided to show only the portion of the Chinese who responded. It some what achieved some favourable statistics. But what kind of a sample size is 273 respondents? I am pretty sure that it fails all sampling tests requirements. 273 respondents! The country has a population of about 27 million. And they say about 25% are Chinese. That works out to be 273 out of 6.75 million Chinese?
You call that a sampling? Is that good enough data to shout and propagate the way The Star did?
And there was the specific mention of 64% of respondents who didn't feel too much for a sex scandal tainted leader. To report this figure is alright. But what are the other questions posed in the survey? Why not list them all. Is this not called selective reporting?
I don't give a shit about OTK and CSL. And I am not writing about any one of them. My point here is the spin that The Star makes. The above news article is but an example of what The Star is capable of. And I think that this is a bloody good example of a spin.
Please la Wong Chun Wai. Have a bit of dignity and pride la. Some Malaysians may get fooled, but not all Malaysians are idiots. You have turned this newspaper into rubbish. Do you decide what goes on in this paper or is it a collective decision with Clement Hii?
Spinning is dangerous journalism. You cannot say that The Star has broken any law. Neither can you say that they have cheated on the survey. Everything they reported were quite likely to be true. But it is what they choose to report and the manner in which they choose to present them that is morally incorrect.
We Malaysians are a pitiful lot. What is real and what is not in this country? Which is fact, which is a spin and which are wayang kulits?
Come Christmas, I am going to ask Santa for a new laptop. I'll leave him some extra-large cookies from Mrs. Fields to please him. Damn. Better start working on a chimney at home. Not too narrow, I heard Santa is really fat.
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