From my fave online new source, themalaysianinsider.com~~
As election anger subsides, newspapers recover
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 9 — Newspapers halted a collective five-year fall in circulation this year as negative perception of the Barisan Nasional (BN)-controlled press eased some three years after the ruling coalition suffered record losses in the landmark March 2008 general election.
The only exception to this was the Umno-linked New Straits Times, which saw its daily circulation fall just below 100,000 copies, according to the latest independent audit.
Circulation of most other dailies rose as a whole in the first half of the year and also when divided according to the main three languages — Malay, English and Mandarin.
“Up to 2010, we were reeling from public disenchantment with perceived pro-BN media after the political tsunami in 2008,” The Star’s executive editor Datuk Wong Sai Wan said, referring to BN’s loss of its customary two-thirds majority in Parliament and five state governments.
This comes after sales of English and Malay mainstays — The Star, New Straits Times, Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian — fell freely over the past five years.
Figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) show that during the period 2005 to 2010 The Star’s circulation dropped from 310,000 to 279,000 (-10 per cent), the New Straits Times from 139,000 to 101,500 (-27 per cent), Utusan Malaysia from 213,000 to 172,000 (-19.2 per cent) and Berita Harian from 204,000 to 150,000 (-26.5 per cent).
But except for the New Straits Times, all of them bounced back in the first six months of 2011 along with top Mandarin papers Sin Chew and China Press.
The New Straits Times, which recently saw Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s former media strategist Abdul Jalil Hamid taking charge, managed to slow its drop in sales from an average of 4,000 copies in each half of 2010 to just 2,500 copies in H1 2011.
“Many, myself included, were preaching the death of the newspaper. But that kind of talk appears to have stopped especially since the economy improved last year,” Wong told The Malaysian Insider.
The Star, which is up nearly 10,000 copies this year, has moved aggressively to brace itself from the impact of the newsreading public moving to Internet-based providers.
Its website is the highest-ranked among newspapers and it launched an app for Apple’s popular iPad tablet in January.
According to ABC, Berita Harian now sells 151,500 copies daily and Utusan Malaysia 173,500 while Sin Chew grew from 385,500 to 389,000 and China Press from 163,000 to 166,500.
Wong said, however, that “our frustration is that with next year’s general election, all that we have recovered will be lost again.”
“This is because in the public’s eye newspapers don’t just report on election issues, we are an election issue.”
***********************************Vote ABU, ABU, ABU at GE13!
Anything but Umno (Part 3) — Ali Kadir
NOV 26 — Nice to know that Umno’s soft selling has begun. It is always the case that when elections are around the corner, party leaders try and create a warm and fuzzy feeling about themselves and the political ideals whose stellar aims they have long forgotten.
And the public relations was officially kicked off a few days ago when Umno’s knock-off Goebbels, Ahmad Maslan, told party members not to slight non-Malays at the assembly when they deliver their speeches. What he meant was don’t behave like they usually do on 364 other days of the year.
Today, party deputy president Muhyiddin Yassin continues the PR campaign by telling Malaysian that Umno and specifically he are not racist. He says it is only the perception that the party and he are racist.
Actually he is like the relative who insults you, cheats you and then bumps into you at a function and behaves like the aggrieved person.
I think Muhyiddin is short-changing Umno. The public believes that not only is Umno corrupt but it has lost its moral compass, is devoid of any leaders with integrity and is only interested in staying in power, regardless of the consequences for the country.
Just to jog his memory, may I interest him in taking part in this short quiz.
1. Which political party has embraced Ibrahim Ali and Perkasa?
2. Which political party owns the most rabid and anti-national unity/anti-non-Malay newspaper in the country?
3. Which political party has played the race and religion card continuously since the last election?
4. Which political party leads a Cabinet whose ministers dare not declare their assets?
5. Which political party has a minister who is involved in the National Feedlot Centre scandal?
6. Which political party has created division in Malaysia by accusing Christians of trying to take over the government and by endorsing the parading of a cow head in Shah Alam?
7. Which political party took over power unconstitutionally in Perak?
8. Which political party used the police to fire tear gas and arrest its own citizens who wanted free and fair elections?
9. Which political party has the most number of senior officials without a job but appear to be living in the lap of luxury?
10. Which political party needed to coin its own phrase “money politics” to hide the fact that corruption is in its DNA today?
Muhyiddin, if your answer is Umno to all the questions, then you are an honest man. If your answer to these questions is anything but Umno, then it has to be ABU for many of us.
* Ali Kadir reads The Malaysian Insider.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.
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