Spent a while thinking of the title of this posting. It’s rather harsh and it kinda not what I really want to say. But alas, that will do for now.
Back in the day, probably in the 90’s, my favourite newspaper was Mingguan Malaysia. The Sunday edition of Utusan Malaysia (literally translated to Malaysian Courier/Messenger). There was a time when I look forward to Sundays, where I’d have a chance to read the ‘Wawancara’ or interview of the week. It’s usually two sometimes three pages long. I’d read every sentence written and re-read them. That’s where I developed my love for Q&A or interview sessions. Till today, the part I love the most in any magazine I picked up would be interviews with a particular person of interest to me. I’d buy a full blown magazine to just read a 2-3 pages of interview that interests me. I just love reading about how one thought process works in their head, in doing or coming out with something.
I love to understand the thought process behind some of the policies introduced by the government and the current situations faced by the person of interest feature in Mingguan Malaysia. Many a time, you can see how much one’s filter or views of certain situations, shaped their thought process and action towards it. It kinda opens you mind and let you experience this paradigm shift of your own views or opinions. Suddenly you realised that you weren’t so RIGHT or, there are more than one ways to see or do things other that YOUR ways.
My second favourite section was of course “bisik-bisik by Awang Selamat. I just love the writing style. A bit of sarcasm, with a dash of criticism on various topics of interest. They are just short snippets of what Awang thinks on current issues. Some are sarcastic in nature, some are straight up finger pointings, some are just mild criticisms and some are just opinions on matters of interest. It’s a great place to catch up on some topics, that the editors fancy. Sort of like twitter posting nowadays, a short and sweet take on issues. Sometimes it’s a thread that takes up several tweets, sometimes it’s just a single paragraph. Love it.
After a while, probably around 2006 or so, I started to find Utusan a little unbearable. Too many politicians doing and saying stupid things at the time and Utusan no longer make it a point to write about them. Back in the days they would write about it in the Awang Selamat column or in some of the guests writer column. I always look forward to it because I know we can depend on the paper to fight for us the Rakyat and tell these politicians off. But alas, it seldom happened around that period onwards.
I may be too young to remember or perhaps its the nostalgia that is clouding my mind, but, I still remember moments where I read Awang Selamat calling out some of the politicians doing or saying something stupid. At least, in a sarcastic manner so as not to cause them any trouble. But that was no longer the case, if I remember correctly, it was probably around Pak Lah’s time.
The other thing about Utusan, they was so behind the curve in their adoption of the News-on-the-Internet stuff. I still remember their website was slow to load, still using frames, and whatever janky web tools that were probably 5-10 years behind the curve. What made it worse was, probably only a few years ago, before they got their ‘new’ website, they would load a full desktop page on a mobile device. Be it a phone or a tablet, the same full desktop website would load and it took literally 5-10 seconds for the whole thing to load. A big turn off if we want to read an article that probably will only take 5-10 seconds to read or skimmed through. Coupled that with a clickbait-ty headlines, you’d be cursing the moment you realised the article was a shitty one. It was that bad.
On social media front, I still follow Utusan on Facebook, and here’s the other part they failed to take advantage of. There are almost nothing else other then posts showing snippets of the news and a link to the article on their website. That’s it. Occasionally you’d see Senyum Kambing posting. They had zero social media personality and strategy. Almost zero interaction with the readers or followers of the page.
I love Utusan. Wait, maybe I should say, I used to love Utusan. I felt Utusan was really a newspaper I’m really proud to be a reader of. But, after they no longer have these opinion pieces, interviews, Awang Selamat takes on stuff that matters and news stories that matters, to folks like me, I no longer felt proud…for many many years. And since Utusan never really cared about their younger or more technology savvy readers, where most of these readers only spent their time online and on social media, I kinda stopped caring about them as well.
To me, Utusan no longer represent the modern Malays, the Rakyat that wanted to be informed, that wanted to stay ahead what’s happening and serves the interest of the readers.
A few months ago, there was a campaign to buy start buying Utusan again so that it can be saved. I did not do anything at all. It needs to be save by it’s masters, not us the readers that it betrays. Unless the masters of Utusan cares and let Utusan be Utusan, it is more suited to be left for dead instead. Utusan in it’s current state is not worth saving. Even with all the history behind it, it’s better if all of it dies. Let it be a reminder to never stray from the mission that it sets to be. Utusan needs to apologise for straying too far away, it needs to start serving its readers again rather than its masters.
Corporations that failed their customers need to apologise sincerely and starts to work towards being better and win the trust of their customers. They can’t take it for granted. Look at Domino’s Pizza Turnaround, this has been a textbook case study around the world on how a corporation can really turned-around a failing business. Listen to what customers have to say, internalise and understand it, acknowledge it, then pledge to be better. It’s very simple.
I sure hope Syed Mokhtar and his team can make it NSTP group the papers that we the Rakyat can be proud of, not just papers to be given free to schools and government offices. Syed Mokhtar have also been buying shares of Utusan via his proxies, I hope he’ll make Utusan a better newspaper as well. One that serves the readers. As for Utusan, you can stay dead if you don’t change because, nobody wants to save you, even your masters didn’t save you. Yup, your masters left you to die, really, they left you for dead. Don’t get angry at me, I’m just the messenger, sending you this message. Don’t kill the messenger.
Peace be unto all.
p/s: I knew the title will deliver at the end.
p/p/s: Edited the part relating to Syed Mokhtar to clarify the shares he’s buying or have been holding for a few years.
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