No such thing as freedom of the press in M'sia! Newspaper blatantly bias towards BN!!

Four Sarawak local mainstream newspapers from different languages yesterday published special pullouts that highlighted BN and Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's contribution to the state, drawing accusations of campaigning for the ruling coalition.

Among the local editions of four dailies, three are owned by Umno-linked Media Prima - New Straits Times, Berita Harian and Harian Metro, and another is owned by timber tycoon and media mogul Tion Hiew King - Sin Chew Daily.

The special supplements applauded the “development politics” concept introduced by Taib and illustrated that the Sarawak economy is at its peak, and the state will become a developed industrial state by 2020.

The pullouts published by Harian Metro had 12 pages, New Straits Times and Berita Harian had 24 pages respectively, while the pullout of the nation's best-selling Chinese daily Sin Chew Daily had 48 pages.

All four pullouts highlighted BN's achievements in various sectors, including Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (Score), tourism, agriculture, land titles of NCR, lower land renewal premium and Bakun dam.

The pullouts only focused on information related to BN and none on the opposition. It was not stated whether they arecampaignadvertisements.

However the content is very similar to BN's manifesto launched on Thursday which vowed to develop Sarawak into a developed state by 2020 and the richest state by 2030.

Sin Chew Daily's pullout, titled '10th Sarawak state election special report', claimed Taib had transformed Sarawak during his 30-year tenure, hence he was dubbed the 'architect of modern Sarawak'.

It also described SUPP president and Deputy Chief Minister George Chan as 'father of Miri''s development' who managed to develop the oil city to surpass Sibu and become Sarawak's second largest city in 15 years.

Chan is seeking his seventh consecutive term as assemblyperson for Piasau, a seat located in the parliamentary constituency of Miri.

The pullout also rebutted many allegations by the opposition, claiming that Sarawak still retains 80 percent of its forest, Malaysia's fuel price is the cheapest in the region, increasing bumiputras' income through the development of NCR land, and that the Bakun dam will provide sufficient energy for Sarawak's industrialisation.

'The media should remain neutral'

Wong Meng Chuo, coordinator of election watchdog Sibu Election Watch, pointed out that the media should maintain neutral during elections and refrain from publishing such publicity material.

However, he was not surprised as this had happened in the last state polls.

“Judging from the content, they should be categorised as advertisements but they were reported as news.

Wong added that the exploitation of media by the BN would definitely affect the election result in favour of the ruling coalition.