{"id":2242,"date":"2008-07-29T11:45:24","date_gmt":"2008-07-29T03:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2008\/07\/29\/pakatan-state-magazines-come-under-fire\/"},"modified":"2008-07-30T16:22:05","modified_gmt":"2008-07-30T08:22:05","slug":"pakatan-state-magazines-come-under-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/borninmalaysia\/2008\/07\/29\/pakatan-state-magazines-come-under-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakatan state magazines come under fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Penang and Perak state governments had announced<\/a> the publication of magazines that various groups branded as propoganda. These groups called the the two state governments \u2018hypocrites\u2019 as they were doing the same thing as the previous governments which they had earlier criticised.<\/p>\n

Malaysiakini<\/a> carried some of the responses from these groups:<\/p>\n

Media Watch:<\/p>\n

Penang-based Media Watch group described Suara Rakyat, published by the DAP-led Penang government and Citra Perak in PAS-led Perak as \u201cmerely a public media tool of partisan propaganda.\u201d\u201cThe Pakatan Rakyat governments are no different from the previous ones after all. They are hypocrites by copying BN media policy to serve their cynical self interests,\u201d said its coordinator B K Ong, stressing Media Watch\u2019s stand on governments to \u2018stay away\u2019 from media publications.<\/p>\n

Even if a state government funds and publishes a state magazine, he argues it should be administrated by an independent editorial board to provide free and fair news coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut these magazines are more like mouthpieces of Pakatan Rakyat state governments than independent magazines,\u201d he told Malaysiakini.<\/p>\n

By following the precedent set by his predecessor, Ong said Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng had proven to be a hypocrite since \u201che had condemned BN-controlled media all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe should have titled the magazine as Suara Kerajaan (Government Voice) not Suara Rakyat (People\u2019s Voice),\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

United Hindu Religious Council:<\/p>\n

President G Mugunthan criticised the Pakatan Rakyat state governments of not going on an austerity drive to save government spending, more so during such difficult times for the people.\u201cThe Pakatan state governments claim to be thrifty but are wrongly spending precious government funds
\non propaganda. The money could have well spent for noble causes like helping the poor and Tamil schools,\u201d he stressed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Aliran:<\/p>\n

Although social reform movement Aliran is not against the government-sponsored publications, it nonetheless said that state magazines should be more for \u201cintellectual discourse, intelligent thinking and people centric.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Penang Heritage Trust:<\/p>\n

Penang Heritage Trust head Dr Choon Sim Poey concurred that it would not be right for the state governments to utilise public funds for political publicity, instead of\u00a0 publishing government policies and action plans for the information of the people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Opposition Leader in Penang:<\/p>\n

Azhar Ibrahim on Monday criticised the state government of going back on its promise to cut operational costs due to a lack of funds.\u201cIs this what we call the \u2018CAT\u2019 government?\u201d he asked, taking a swipe at the state government\u2019s widely-propagated principles of competency, accountability and transparency (CAT).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

it is estimated that Penang government will spent RM300,000 (20,000 copies x 3 editions) . Perak is also expected to spend same amount for 6 editions of 10,000 copies each. Suara Rakyat (52 pages), Penang’s version is in 3 languages – Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil. Citra Perak (20 pages) is in Malay only.<\/p>\n

Previous Penang government spent nearly RM300,000 a year to publish separate Malay, Chinese and Tamil magazines in Penang. The Malay version, Wawasan Rakyat was published first in 1994, Hong Yuan in Mandarin was launched in 1999 while Makkal Madal in Tamil was started in 2003.<\/p>\n

The previous Perak BN government only published Warta Perak in Bahasa.<\/p>\n

The Pakatan government must be careful to ensure that they do not follow the path of those they criticised earlier. This kind of expense will not go down well with public, and will be used by opposition to attack government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Penang and Perak state governments had announced the publication of magazines that various groups branded as propoganda. These groups called the the two state governments \u2018hypocrites\u2019 as they were doing the same thing as the previous governments which they had earlier criticised. Malaysiakini carried some of the responses from these groups: Media Watch: Penang-based Media […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[158,165,143,148],"class_list":["post-2242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-borninmalaysia","tag-media","tag-pakatan-rakyat","tag-penang","tag-perak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}