MGG Pillai Commentary View

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A Cloud Descends Over The Sun

The Prime Minister said in Pahang if Malays wanted meritocracy they could have it, but they should not then expect preferential places in local universities and elsewhere. The other races, however you look at it, are beaten down to medicrity, and impediments placed when they do not conform. About the same time, the one attempt to have a newspaper which at least reports the news lost its focus, and the Sun threatens to return to mediocrity and mark time with the establishment newspapers. The internationally known business man of unquestioned repute, with a remarkable penchant to sue journalists and news organisations for defamation, Tan Sri Vincent Tan, is back in the saddle. When the former banker, Mr Tong Kooi Yong, offered to buy the Sun off him, he offloaded the RM100 million and more in debt to Danamodal, and did for RM30 million. He realised the news business brought him headaches galore, especially with his penchant to sue anyone who does not view him as he views himself. I should know.

One had wondered how long this attempt to make the Sun a better newspaper in the land would last. Mr Tong brought in Mr Tan Boon Kean as managing director and Mr Ho Kay Tat as chief editor. Both are from Mr Tong's successful business tabloid weekly, Edge, and with a revitalised team caused shivers to both the New Straits Times and the Star, especially as its circulation rose high enough to challenge the New Straits Times for second place. But the Prime Minister's threat to the Malays is similar to what budding newspaper entrepreneurs face: if he tries to be good and compete with existing newspapers, he would be a marked man. Why Mr Tong gave up the ghost we do not know, but there are hints of some departments in the administration suddenly interested in his personal affairs, and what he did at some forgotten date in the past. The home ministry would not transfer the newspaper licence to his group, and without it, he could not continue.

He had done such a good job revitalising the paper that it has become, for many, the newspaper of choice. Mr Tan and Mr Ho brought with him a team of professionals and columnists who provided insights, and crystal clear writing, Malaysians are unused to in their newspapers. The Sun on Sunday is (was?) without doubt the best of the crowd. But it upset the others. And the unsual stance of making what is written readable, and the selection of stories to give it a balance, was viewed with distaste at the ministry of home affairs. It had the best coverage of the Lunas byelection, with its insights and its sustained reporting and comment.

Tan Sri Vincent Tan, whose love affair with owning a newspaper fades with his unexpected losses in the venture, now finds himself back to where he does not want to be. The return of the old guard in its chief editor's chair has removed the spell from under the reporters' feet and which sustained them in doing so well. The effect is instantaneous: Look at the front page headline of the past three days, and today's: you would notice the difference soon enough. Mr H'ng Hung Yong returns as the Sun's managing director, and Mr Andy Yong as its chief editor; one had gone on to Berjaya Corporation and the other to head its promotions and marketing department. Until they can sustain the enthusiasm Mr Ho could, the Sun would soon be put in the shade.

To transform a newspaper which people want to buy, more than money is required. You must have someone with what he wants the newspaper for. It cannot be run, as the Sun was until Mr Tong's arrival, as a business venture and provide effusive coverage to keep people in government and private sector happy. The first to go would be its well-regarded business coverage. Without the business resources of the Edge, whose facilities it shared during Mr Tong's short stint, that would flicker even in bright sunlight. The news coverage will lose its much needed bite. So the spin on Malayan Banking sacking its employees, one it calls voluntary separation scheme, is dressed up to make it sound so appealing and as the front page banner story at that. When all is said and done, you need a disciplined editorial ringmaster to make soar. Tan Sri Vincent could not provide that in a hundred years.

There are many ways to skin the cat. In Malaysia we skin the cat to make others think we have. Editors and its owners cannot understand why despite skinning it, the cat is scratiching it all over their bodies. But good luck to Tan Sri Vincent Tan. He would need it. No doubt his international reputation and his unquestioned repute -- though not in Australia where he tangles with a former journalist on the Sun in the courts, as in Malaysia -- should pull him through. The trouble is he would not recognise good luck if it presented itself in front of him. He thought it was his good luck that he could unload it. He could not. That's the rub.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my