Najib abusing his position to save Utusan!

Recently Najib gave Utusan Malaysia his endorsement when he urged government departments, government-linked companies (GLCs) and Bumiputera firms to advertise more in the Umno-owned Bahasa Malaysia daily to ensure the newspaper's capability to compete in the long term. This is an outright abuse of his position and wrong! Utusan is a private company spewing out racist lies and slander. On top of that to name a street road after this UMNO own company is a shiok sendiri exercise that is abusing his power! 

I like the response from the article below taken from Malaysian Insiders.

How far does one go to support fiction? In Utusan Malaysia's case, it goes as far as getting government departments and state companies to advertise in the Umno-owned newspaper to ensure its survival.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's push for his party paper today to get such advertisements has to be seen in that light - an endorsement for fiction writing which the daily indulges in from time to time.

After all, no other Malaysian newspaper has lost as many defamation cases as Utusan Malaysia in the last few years.

In opening the 75-year-old newspaper's new office today, Najib said Utusan cannot rely solely on circulation to stay in business and that advertising is needed to keep the news company afloat.Despite its fiction writing putting Malaysians at loggerheads with each other, here comes the prime minister asking Malaysian taxpayers to fund this party newsletter to ensure it can compete in the future.

And this is where money from the GLCs and government departments come in. After all, most of the private sector have ditched advertising in the daily over its racial slant in recent years.

But make no mistake, the advertising ringgit from GLCs comes from taxpayers, many of them educated Malaysians who live in urban areas - the same voters who rejected the politics of racism and chauvinism espoused by Utusan Malaysia.

What would they think of this latest move then, to use their hard-earned money to support a paper prone to fiction? Wouldn't that money be better used to mitigate the effects of rising costs?

Is keeping Utusan afloat a priority for this government over the livelihood of most Malaysians?

And renaming the Jalan Enam road where the Utusan Malaysia office is to Jalan Utusan is a priority and pride for this government?

“Jalan Enam has no meaning. It will be renamed Jalan Utusan,” Najib announced at the opening of the newspaper's new building.

What really has no meaning is supporting such fiction that causes racism and makes people argue with each other. That is what Utusan and its editors have done and were found guilty and fined in a court of law.

This government has a country to run and an economy to grow, not put priority on helping a newspaper survive because it belongs to the ruling party. - September 13, 2013.