Friday, September 10, 2010

FRIDAY GUEST BLOGGER: FMT EDITORIAL

A major player in the 2008 political storm that shook the seemingly impregnable citadel to the core was the alternative media. Through this medium, the people got to know the dark side of the government. By clicking to the “other sites”, the voters soaked up information never seen in the mainstream newspapers. By browsing through the blog sites and news portals, the citizens had formed their own ideas and were ready to act. Eventually, the well-informed electorate came out in full force and cut down the arrogant rulers to size. In some states, they threw out the government to the crocodiles.

The battle for the hearts and minds of the people in that historic year was also a contest between the mainstream dailies and the alternative media. The heavyweights, backed by the full might of the state, employed all the dirty tricks they could concoct to scare the people. The government knew or refused to acknowledge that it was losing ground and used the fourth estate it largely controlled to churn up facts based on half truths and outright lies. The elite press screamed “danger” at every opportunity in an all-out campaign to discredit the opposition.

The blogs and websites were also on fire. They were great hits with visitors who flocked there to discover the truth. They could never obtain such information from the government-controlled mouthpieces. There in glaring details momentous events that the government tried to down play or cover up were reported. Pictures and stories that never saw the light of day in the major newspapers were given prominence in the alternative media. The truth was reported and the anger of the people – the judges – boiled over. They showed their displeasure at the ballot box.



But the snooty men in power did not pay much attention to the fire raging in the alternative sites at that time. They thought their own propaganda machines were more powerful and could easily chop off these new kids on the block. They thought they possessed superior firepower in the papers they held sway and believed they would truimph. They were convinced that truth was on their side. In the end, their distorted truth did not prevail. They lost, their big-gun newspapers lost, the alternative media won.

Strangely the battle of the newspapers – mainstream versus online – in 2008 seems to have been forgotten. No less than the prime minister is urging the people to trust the mainstream media. How? How can the public put their faith in the major newspapers which had become synonymous with cant and disinformation? How can the people treat government-manipulated broadsheets and tabloids as authoritative sources of news when they spewed venom and hate? How can the citizens trust news that whitewash misdeeds and glorify empty slogans? How can the voters accept facts that are manufactured in government laboratories? How is it possible to take as gospel truth reports that are clearly the handiwork of twisted minds outside the news room?

In the era of ICT, several tools of information have become available to the people who have also grown more discerning. They know how to pick gems of truth from piles of official garbage. They know how to tell apart ground realities from all the hype and hoopla surrounding grandious proclamations, declarations and projections. They are acutely aware that news as related in the official organs are slanted to serve the interest of the first estate. When they read the dailies, they intuitively recognise that the facts are questionable. The strength of the alternative media is that they give the unvarnished, and not the polished, truth. Unvarnished, you get the real feel of things; polished, you see nothing but reflected illusion.

The dynamo that drives the websites and blogs is the enthusiasm of the writers. What they write may be opinion-based but that is the name of the game: opinions count when what is at stake is the future of the country. Writers give their opinions because they want to have a say in what is happening around them. If they think the 1Malaysia concept is bunkum, that's telling the plain truth. If they think all those glowing figures about a buoyant economy are fabricated, that's seeing things realistically. If they are of the view that the wealth of the nation is being robbed blind, that's presenting the unadorned fact. The alternative media gives the writers – and the public – the platform to state their stand. The elite big boys won't do it. They won't dare entertain the other views. They are fed with facts sweetened with all kinds of spices. The truth is often told through lies.

It doesn't take an army to fight for a cause and win. One man can do the job and the whole country will sit up and take note. The alternative media is the biggest challenge to authority: it is a weapon that belongs to the common citizens. It is a feared weapon because now the truth is no longer the monopoly of the politicians. The government cannot hide anymore, anywhere. Every move will be monitored, every wrong-doing exposed, every heinous crime – past or present – laid bare. In the alternative media, the story is about truth, justice, law.

+++++

ZETI MARZIANA MUHAMED, GO PLAY WITH YOUR PUSSY, US BIG CATS DON’T NEED YOUR ADVICE.



A MOTHERCHELL CONTRIBUTION

8 comments:

motherchell said...

My Dear Zorro,
I'm still trying to confirm the mirror sites from overseas. Will get back at the earliest.TMnet has become the gestapo using taxpayers sustenance.
Thank you and God Bless you.

Anonymous said...

We all know the reasons why we cannot access 'Malaysia Today' for the past 48 hours.. Try this for something different.
http://malaysiansmustknowthetruth.blogspot.com/
And remember this during the festive season - Perkasa is just a smokescreen for UMNO. The goon Ibrahim is play-acting to whip out the sentiments of his community indirectly for UMNO. He's saying what UMNO is not supposed to say within the Barisan in order not to hurt the sensitivities of the other coalition partners. A zebra and its stripes cannot be separated. The mask has to come out from Ibrahim and Perkasa. In other words, we had UMNO then. It was supposed to be UMNO Baru later. Now Perkasa. Got the picture, guys?
malsia1206

Anonymous said...

Time magazine reported that Malaysia has lost RM320 billion to corruption since the early 1980s, which is when Dr Mahathir Mohamad started his 22-year 'reign' as prime minister to plunder the country.

Some of the documentary evidence and the details as to how the plunder was carried out are slowly being revealed. Mahathir and his many partners in crime would be extremely worried and would be thinking of various strategies to save themselves and their ill-gotten assets in case Pakatan Rakyat comes to power.

Recent revelations that large sums of money have left the country could be due to these people sending their billions overseas where they hope to flee in case BN loses the next elections.

Pakatan should have a plan to quickly prevent these rogues from fleeing and recover the stolen money.

wandererAUS said...

End of the day, "Truth will always prevail"
Yes! if PR captured Putrajaya, make sure the corrupted maggots do not get away....

Anonymous said...

A very good article from Malaysianunplug.

Malaysia Today , the hard-hitting news website edited by Raja Petra Kamarudin, has been blocked by mysterious technical problems twice in the last 24 hours after publishing damning articles of deep corruption at the top of the Malaysian government.

It wasn't clear who was doing the blocking, but whoever it is must be learning that the Internet is a sieve. The offending stories almost immediately appeared in another anonymous blog called "(Click HERE:) Malaysians Must Know The Truth."

Raja Petra said in an email from London,

"We are under severe attack. We've been down for the last 12 hours and a day before that for 24 hours.Looks like someone is spending a lot of money to keep us off the air.The website's technology personnel restored access, only to have it disappear again."

1. Looting of MAS by UMNO

One implicated the United Malays National Organization, the country's leading political party, in looting MAS, the country's flag carrier.

Raja Petra has been particularly hard-hitting with a series of articles based on verbatim documents concerning the misdoings in MAS.Raja Petra said,

"It was the MAS story. The site was brought down just a few hours after that. We revealed documents to and from the court to compromise the MAS case against Tajudin Ramli."

The Asia Sentinel, in an Aug. 24 article using the same documents, wrote that Tajudin Ramli, a crony of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, was accused of looting the airline of tens of millions of dollars and very nearly putting it into bankruptcy by investigators who themselves then faced a campaign to discredit them.

The airline, which had been privatized and turned over to Tajudin, had to be rescued by the GOVERNMENT.

After it had incurred RM8 billion in losses, Tajudin returned the airline to the government for almost the original price, the losses notwithstanding.

Raja Petra continued to write about the issue, culminating in an article on Sept. 8 in which he said Tajudin had been given immunity by UMNO with the backing of former Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and that reports by investigators and whistle-blowers went unheeded by the police.

In the article, Raja Petra said he had been visited by Tajudin's lawyers in London, who told him that he (Tajudin) had only been a front man for UMNO and that :

"UMNO not only has to protect him from prosecution but that they also had to ensure that the government bought back the shares at the same price that they were sold to him although the shares were only worth a portion of the real value."

According to the article (CLICK HERE) ,"This was going on not only for MAS but for other deals as well."

motherchell said...

My Dear Zorro,
Just a note for all those still having difficulties accessing MT. Pl go to,

http://uppercaise.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/access-to-malaysia-today/

for full details of the routes for access. Dear malsia1206 suggestion too is a good one!
Thank You Zorro and much Regards.

Anonymous said...

Who the @#$% is ZETI MARZIANA MUHAMED?

zorro said...

Motherchell, Malsia1206....noted and thanks.

Anon1249pm
click on YOUR ADVICE for link.