Thursday, September 24, 2009

KHAZANAH'S CELCOM AD ON ANTI-NAJIB, OPPOSITION-BIASED PORTAL?

Daripada The Unspinners

Celcom, a subsidiary of Axiata Berhad which was spin-off from Tekelom Malayisa put up an ad on The Malaysian Insider. There is no way of confirming but if what we see is real and nothing is heard from Celcom, then what-we-see-is-what-will-be-believe.

If that is seen as nothing wrong, consider that advertisers' choice of media is dependent on the media organisation's affiliation and editorial philosophy. The media organisation can't be one that is adverserial to the advertiser, their stakeholders and more so their shareholders. In the case of Celcom, it is a subsidary of Khazanah Malaysia and Khazanah is owned by the Government.

The media Malaysian Insiders is a news portal established by Singapore Times-linked Kalimullah and Brenda Pereira. MI emerged after Kalimullah left The New Straits Times. Kalimullah is believed to be the fund provider and have spent considerable amount of money to attract traffic. It is now time to attract advertising dollar as revenue.

The problem is MI's editorial is clearly anti-Najib and heavily biased for the opposition. Those in the know will always be wary with any links to Singapore's Straits Times for the unspoken role beyond the Singapore border.

Nearly all their columnists are opposition and left wingers. Their highly spinned and biased news and articles are dispersed and promoted all over the blogosphere through regular copy and paste on opposition portals like Malaysia Today and oppositions blogs.

It is certainly puzzling why Celcom CEO, Dato Shazzaly Ramli would be giving a lifeline to a media organisation bend on bandishing their controlling shareholder. We have been hearing of Shazally establishing telco service companies that offer services to DAP and PKR. But we haven't got the full picture yet. Now the adverstisement on The Malaysian Insiders.

We are not ruling out the possibility of MI putting out the advert without permission and clearance from Celcom. However, Shazally and the Celcom Corporate Communication people must do something to reprimand MI or we will be shouting.