What Matters: Should they or should they not?

I'm putting this in the "What Matters" column because I find this a very good argument, and hopefully secure us a better future, ridding the unnecessary ties with them.

I was browsing The Star Online, and there is a veep candidate Donald Lim, who pledged that MCA should sell off their shares binding the Chinese Media, and that they should restore press freedom to the current situation in Malaysia.

They have controlled four newspaper, mainly SinChew, Nanyang, China Press, and Guang Ming Daily. Basically that equals that they have secured the readers from most Chinese readers, leaving the independent ones not really getting any readership because they don't have a proper sense of direction.

What do I think of Chinese newspapers in general?

Well, I think that Chinese newspapers are very good at creating awareness on what matters to the readers. And they have a knack on sensationalising crime news. It's not entirely their fault, but I'm brought up by Chinese education so I kind of understand that chinese wordings have a sense of emotion, that could drive people, something like how calligraphy does it.

So what do I think?

Bear in mind that the shares which is currently RM47 million, is posing as a political deadweight for the party. Why so? Even as they had economic control over these newspapers, they had no control over the contents sometimes. Look what happen to the Ahmad Ismail incident, carelessly just being let go by the MCA. Most MCA members only spoken only after it is blown out of proportion.

But should they sell it off?

What I'm afraid is that if that is the case, the business corporations will snap up those shares soon, and then what will happen?

The newspaper's direction had to depend on the business revenues that they had accept. So it is not entirely free of opinion, not being able to represent the people, but instead represent the company they work for, ending up to become part of capitalism. And that is demeaning for a newspaper, for any newspapers.

It is very hard to choose because on one hand, you have a newspaper with political affiliations, which spreads their propaganda, censors away other opinions, showing a biased image; on the other hand, became a capitalist slave, publishing articles according to risks and economic development, lost your touch with society in order to appease the elites, portraying a different kind of "bias".

My guess is that they should just let the papers go without consider the buy or sell function. Sure, RM 47million is a lot of money that will be gone to waste, but at least press freedom will be restored, and it might not be entirely a liability.

I'm really really bad with mathematics hence I couldn't really give out proper calculations, portraying risks and failures about buying or selling the shares of a newspaper. But I'm all up for his suggestion that political parties should let go of the newspapers, and let themselves choose if they want to be "friends" with the political party.

Plus.

Please don't consider only the Chinese media, there's also the English media, that higher institution which I'm currently studying and that primary school. They are also be done out of good deeds, which should not have any pressure put on them to constantly remind them that they are indebt with MCA.

Think.