KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 — Putrajaya’s recent order for government-linked corporations (GLCs) to spend more advertising ringgit in Utusan Malaysia is a way for its “masters” to bail out the newspaper that has been losing costly lawsuits, a PKR MP claimed today.
Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tsin also reminded GLCs to keep its professionalism and independence intact, instead of succumbing to heat from such political pressure.
“Utusan has lost many lawsuits that amounts to hundreds of thousands of ringgit, with many more pending in court. All these have severely hurt the Group’s financial standing,” Sim said in a statement here.
“Perhaps this is the reason why the master of the Utusan Group, the Umno leaders are now asking the GLCs to advertise more in Utusan in order to bail out this struggling newspaper.”
According to Sim, Utusan Group’s debt now amounted to RM20 million, mostly following lawsuits from members of civil societies and politicians who were allegedly victims of Utusan’s false reporting.
In comparison, agencies and departments under the Prime Minister’s Department alone had spent nearly RM1.55 million on advertisements in Utusan between 2011 and 2012, he said.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Ahmad Maslan was reported to have said yesterday that GLCs must spend more money to support Utusan, and another Malay daily Berita Harian, in their “struggle” for the country.
He said the top 35 GLCs only spend 3.7 per cent of their combined advertising budget on Utusan.
Sim asked GLCs today to exercise independent and careful spending, while deciding professionally any decision to advertise whether in Utusan or any other newspapers.
“GLCs’ mandate is to safeguard the nation’s interests not Umno’s interests. Political leaders come and go, but GLC will always remain there to serve the rakyat,” he said.
Utusan’s fortunes today are a far cry from its heyday before the Internet led to a boom in online news companies, when it used to register a healthy average of 350,000 copies in daily circulation.
Figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations showed that the right-wing newspaper averaged a little over 181,000 copies daily over the first half of 2012.
It was a slight improvement to its 2011 average of 173,000 daily copies, but mainstream papers linked to or owned by pro-establishment groups have been suffering a progressive decline in commercial success over the years.
It has been reported that sales for Malay-language papers like Utusan, Berita Harian and the English-language New Straits Times, which are all either directly or indirectly linked to Umno and the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, have suffered a decline of up to 20 per cent in daily circulation between 2005 and 2009.
Utusan has over the years been accused of being racist and taking a hardline position on issues that are seen to challenge Malay rights and privileges.
It has suffered for its heavily pro-Malay stance, losing several legal suits filed mostly by opposition Pakatan Rakyat politicians in recent years over various defamatory articles.
