cakap cakap...Mustapha Kamil ex Editor NST on 1MDB

Slowly but surely, the underlying issues afflicting 1MDB rears its ugly head.

Looking back, I can't help but recall those days in the newsroom where we took, or were rather instructed to take, every effort to keep the problems at 1MDB under the radar.

Stories regarding the fund must be kept straightforward, not to veer from the official lines, without any additional comments to add perspectives.

I recall that all 1MDB stories were more or less straight publication of its often short press releases. And since very few government official said anything of substance about the fund, little else were told about 1MDB to the public.

Since I left slightly more than a year ago, things had not changed. The mainstream press remain reluctant in pursuing balanced coverage on 1MDB. Worse, they too entered the fray with politicians in saying the issue was politicised.

But numbers do not lie and even then, some were quietly concerned that it was only a matter of time before the truth comes out.

Today, 1MDB, now under mounting pressure both financially and operationally, has put Malaysia under bad light.

It has missed the first RM2.58 billion payment due to the Abu Dhabi-based IPIC. Another of the same amount is due on December 31st, and there are several other equally huge financial obligations.

The press cannot hide this anymore. These are numbers, complete with documentary support in the form of notifications to the London Stock Exchange.

1MDB has failed. There is no other way of telling its story.

And like I had told some of my former colleagues in the newsroom once, it will drag down all other vital institutions, including the press, and the nation, with it.

All because these institutions did not stay true to their purpose of existence.

Mustapha Kamil
Ex editor, NST.

Mustapha Kamil : Lying and the suppression of the truth is not journalism.

Mustapha Kamil 

I would like to ask my former colleagues in the mainstream media this one question:-

Where are we to hide our shamed souls now? 

I say 'we' because I feel ashamed of myself too as for a long 28 years, like you, I failed to play my role as the public's watchdog. 

That was why I left. 

I take no pride in leaving the profession but I wasn't strong enough to go against the tide.
What has been laid bare by the US Justice Department for the world to see should not have been allowed to happen to this great nation. 

We journalists in the mainstream media knew this all along. 

We spoke about it in the newsroom corridors, during our coffee and smoking breaks.
But whenever our paychecks arrived, we enjoyed our perks but forgot that we owed the public nothing less than the truth. 

My time is over my friends. 

Don't for one minute think that am standing proud now for having left. 

Quite frankly, I have nothing much to show. 

Journalism is not about rubbing shoulders with the powerful, being driven around by a driver and with a few honorific titles to show. 

It is about how we help society master their world by helping them make the best decisions on matters that affects their lives. 

Lying and the suppression of the truth is not journalism. 

For you who are still in the profession, there is still time to turn back and put journalism in order. 

You owe that to the society you serve. 

*Mustapha Kamil*
Former Group Editor of NST

Mustapha Kamil : “There are specific instructions to use this or that story, and we’re not allowed to question,”

The Wall Street Journal

                                                    

 

Mustapha Kamil, the former group editor of Malaysia’s English-language New Straits Times. Photo: Mustapha Kamil

By

Tom Wright

Updated June 6, 2016 5:29 a.m. ET

 

A senior Malaysian journalist who quit his job at a leading newspaper said Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government has cracked down on freedom of speech as it tries to limit the fallout from a graft scandal surrounding a state investment fund.

Mustapha Kamil, the former group editor of the English-language New Straits Times, which is controlled by Mr. Najib’s ruling party, took a rare public stance by saying that an increasingly “authoritarian” stand by the government toward media was the reason he quit the newspaper in April. He had worked there for more than a quarter-century.

Mr. Mustapha initially remained quiet after stepping down, but last week posted the reasons for his action on his Facebook page—an unusual act in the closed world of Malaysian state media.

A journalist’s responsibility is “first to the truth,” Mr. Mustapha wrote.

Investigators in at least seven countries are probing 1Malaysia Development Bhd., or 1MDB, a government investment fund Mr. Najib set up in 2009 to boost growth. Some investigators have said they believe $6 billion has gone missing.

Hundreds of millions of dollars originating from 1MDB allegedly moved into Mr. Najib’s private accounts via a web of offshore entities, and was spent on politics, jewelry and clothes, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing investigators and bank-transfer documents.

Mr. Najib’s government has banned newspapers it controls—which include the New Straits Times and the larger-circulation Malay-language Berita Harian and Utusan Malaysia newspapers—from covering the 1MDB story, Mr. Mustapha said in an interview.

Related Coverage

• Special Coverage: The Malaysia Controversy
• Malaysia’s Probe Into 1MDB Fund Was Flawed
• Najib’s Stepson Allegedly Funded U.S. Property Deals With 1MDB Money
• Malaysia’s Najib Razak Gains Momentum After State Election Win
• Najib Confidant Had Central Role at Troubled 1MDB Fund
• Saudi Foreign Minister Says He Was Aware of Donation to Malaysia’s Najib
• The Secret Money Behind ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’

News releases from 1MDB denying stories in the Journal and calling into question its sources would sometimes come to the New Straits Times from the prime minister’s office with orders to run the statements in their entirety, according to Mr. Mustapha. The newspaper did as they were told. 

“There are specific instructions to use this or that story, and we’re not allowed to question,” he said. “Before 1MDB, there was more freedom for us to do our job.”

Mr. Najib and the 1MDB fund didn’t respond to questions about whether the government pressured media over coverage of the scandal. In the past, Malaysia’s government has justified curbing media freedom to report on 1MDB, citing the need to maintain public order.

The prime minister has said the money he received in his account was a political donation from Saudi Arabia, and most of it was returned. 1MDB has denied wrongdoing and says it is cooperating with the probes.

Mr. Mustapha acknowledged that the New Straits Times, which is controlled by Media Prima Bhd., a company owned by Mr. Najib’s ruling United Malays National Organization, always faced some curbs on free expression.

Those limits, though, have narrowed considerably in the past year since Mr. Najib began to fight allegations about taking money from 1MDB, he added.

“It was not this frequent and not this authoritarian,” Mr. Mustapha said of previous media controls.

James Chin, a Malaysian academic who heads the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania, disagrees that the level of pressure on state-run media from the government has increased under Mr. Najib. He said the government of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad regularly closed newspapers.

But the 1MDB scandal has rolled on for so long—hurting the ruling party’s image—that it is starting to cause fissures between Mr. Najib and editors from newspapers that should support him, Mr. Chin said.

Some independent news outlets, like the Edge Media Group, have also faced pressure from Mr. Najib’s administration after reporting critically about the 1MDB scandal. Last year, the government said it suspended The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily for two months due to the company’s reporting on the scandal. The Malaysian Insider, another online news site owned by the Edge group, said it was blocked by the government in March and decided to shut down amid falling advertising revenue.

Mr. Najib’s administration has cracked down on criticism of 1MDB in other ways. Last year, a former ruling-party politician was arrested on charges of economic sabotage after he called for an investigation into 1MDB. He was later released on bail.

Mr. Mustapha said on Facebook that the Pulitzer Prize committee’s decision in April to cite The Wall Street Journal as a finalist in international reporting for its coverage of 1MDB was a factor in his decision.

“When an American newspaper…wrote a story that got nominated for the coveted Pulitzer Prize, about an issue that happened right under my nose, I began to seriously search my conscience and asked myself why I was in journalism in the first place,” he said. 

Write to Tom Wright at tom.wright@wsj.com

The "SINKING SHIP" syndrome.

“On the morning of April 25th I walked into the CEO’s room with my resignation letter in hand. We sat and talked about my wish for a good one hour where naturally, the CEO enquired why I had wanted to do so.

“The CEO is a chartered accountant, a man who took his job very seriously, one who is adept with numbers and besides heading the company, someone whom I also considered a friend…

“There were two things I related to him that morning. First, just as he, a chartered accountant, would not hesitate to qualify a set of flawed accounts, signing each of them not only by his name, but also by the ethics enshrined within the professional body in which he was a member, I too take journalism ethics seriously.

“In my line of work, there is this element called the ‘truth discipline’. It is one that requires a journalist to be correct, right from the spelling of names of persons or places, to all the reports he must file. His responsibility is first to the truth, by which he must then guide society in navigating the path they had chosen.

“Second, I told him that I had weighed the situation for as long as I could but when an American newspaper, headquartered somewhere in Lower Manhattan in New York, wrote a story that got nominated for the coveted Pullitzer Prize, about an issue that happened right under my nose, I began to seriously search my conscience and asked myself why was I in journalism in the first place.

“We had a cordial discussion that morning and the CEO fully understood my predicament and the fact that there was little else that I could do. In my 27 years of being a journalist, I never once subscribed to the saying that if you can’t beat them, join them.

“In this line of work, there is no such thing as the path of least resistance. You have to stick to your principles. Around the world, an average of 110 like us, pay the ultimate price each year to get the true stories out. At the very least, I felt that as a journalist, I had to honour the sacrifices they had made in abiding by the discipline.

“I hope that answers everything.”

Mustapha Kamil 

steadyaku47 comment : 

The NST editor, Mustapha Kamil, has resigned and the above resignation letter he handed in to this CEO explains his reason for doing so. If you want to put it in plain English.......Mustapha is simply saying the "Truth will prevail"

The question that begs answering is when will the truth prevail? 

It will have to take many more Malaysians like Mustapha Kamil to stand up and be counted before that will happen....and even for Mustapha I must ask him why it has taken him so long to do what he has done? 

Is it because he sees the imminent collapse of Najib's government and all that goes with it...and he sees it as being in his personal interest to realign his "loyalty" with the incoming "powers that be?"

Or is it because he can no longer stomach the wholesale use of NST to advance the political agenda of the present BN government under Najib.....and being a man of principle, sees no way out but a resignation?

Who are we to second guess what is inside Mustapha's head....we can only speculate.

What is has done to Najib and his cohorts is to reinforce the "sinking ship" image we all have of the government under his leadership...a veritable ship of corruption, deceit, lies and

abuse of public office for personal gain.

But it would do us all good if we not forget that the rats that leaves a sinking ship will include not only the good, decent, responsible and honest rats....but also the other rats....those that leaves the sinking ship to save themselves. 

Remember these rats for what they are....evil, corrupt, liars, arrogant....and always...self serving and greedy. Here are a few: