Bloggers are liars…. Malaysian Tourism Minister off tangent
I am so frustrated witht the recent development surrounding the Tourism Ministry lately. Yes… I am talking about the very ministry that is entrusted to tell good things about the country and promote Malaysia as one of the top tourist destinations in the world.
It all started when a journalist from Indonesia, Nila Tanzil was here in Kuala Lumpur recently to cover the launching of Flower Fest. After the event, she went back to Jakarta and had blogged about her disappointing experience when she, and 16 other journalists from Indonesia, were invited by the Tourism Ministry to cover the event, part of the ministry’s effort to promote Malaysia. What was supposed to be a fun and straight forward assignment for the foreign journalists turned out to be just the opposites.
Being invited by the Malaysia Tourism Board, I had a high expectation that it would be a fun and easy trip, in the sense of we would get easy access to explore interesting places in the country.
However, it surprised me that in most of the places written on the itinerary, we couldn’t shoot anything! Actually, when we just arrived at the hotel, the first thing I asked to the Senior Tourism Officer of Malaysia Tourism Board was a simple letter stating that they invited SCTV to come to promote the country for Visit Malaysia 2007, in case we needed it. But, to write such letter, the officer said that they needed two weeks time!
Another small example, we were scheduled to have lunch at a revolving restaurant at KL Tower. We also couldn’t shoot there and the manager even had no idea that a TV station from Indonesia would come. Being in KL Tower, the 4th tallest tower in the world, it would be such a waste if we couldn’t shoot some scenes from the top of the tower. So, we contacted the PR of KL Tower by ourselves. I got her number from a French journalist who works in KL. We got a good response from her as she realized that it would be a good exposure for KL Tower. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and it was such a short notice. She could only assign a customer service to take us to see the facilities that they have and shoot there.
Being a PR myself, I couldn’t believe how the Malaysia Tourism Board didn’t understand what the media needed. A TV station doesn’t need to go to IKEA and eat at a fancy restaurant if they couldn’t get any story (and picture) out of it. Plus, there are so many nice places in Malaysia that actually we could explore for 5 days, apart from staying in Kuala Lumpur only! Too bad the board didn’t allow us to go outside KL (only to Genting Highlands and Putrajaya). They should’ve created a program highlighting the best spots in the country and most importantly, arranged a permit in each of the places so that we could shoot there freely
Those were among her grouses during the trip that was supposed to be impressive so that she can write nice and good things about Malaysia.
But its not over yet. Our Tourism Minister was not amused by her stories. When asked about Nila’s comments, the Minister hit back. His remarks was reported by Sin Chew, 9th March 2007 as follows (as translated and reported in Elizabeth Wong’s blog)
“Bloggers are liars. They use all sort of ways to cheat others. From what I know, out of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women.
Bloggers like to spread rumours, they don’t like national unity. Today our country has achievements because we are tolerant and compromising. Otherwise we will have civil war.
Malays will kill Chinese, Chinese will kill Malays, Indians will kill everybody else.”
He asked people not to believe bloggers and gamble away Malaysia’s future because 50 years of Merdeka (Independence) takes a lot to achieve it.
“We have to show to the people our positive attitude. If the world learns from us, there will peace and no civil war.”
Wow… everyone was in for a big surprise. This kind of statement came from a Malaysian Minister. Instead of trying to find out first whether what had happened is true or not, he simply lashed out at bloggers and branded them as liars. He shouldn’t have said what he said. He had created a war with bloggers…. and women bloggers specifically just by implying 8,000 of 10,000 unemployed bloggers were women. I wonder if he had a statistical proof on this.
But the big question is … mannerism and etiquette. Is this how Malaysian ministers are taught to handle public criticism?
Naturally, the ‘lying’ men and women bloggers did not take what he said sitting duck… they had hit back at him. Here are what their responses are (thanks to Susan Loone for the list of posts by women bloggers in retaliation to the Minister’s un-called for remarks.
- A Scandal of Visit Malaysia Year?
- All Bloggers Are Liars?
- All Bloggers Are Liars?!?!
- Am I A Liar??
- And just when we thought we were getting somewhere…
- Another FOOT & MOUTH Disease Carrier.
- Another look at the Dimwit Boozo
- at the back of my mind
- Blog? or War?
- Bloggers = Liars, Unemployed?
- Bloggers = unemployed women = liar
- Bloggers Cutting Through Media Censorship!
- bloggers don’t like national unity
- Bloggers Malaysian
- BUMA
- Confessions of a Compulsive Liar
- Gee, I’m Only One Of The 2000 and I’m Unemployed
- Hahaha
- Have long since stopped listening to the…
- I’m respectfully employed, thank you very much.
- In Solidarity for the women bloggers…..
- INTERESTING POSTING BY DATUK MARINA MAHATHIR …
- It’s Not My Fault! Chinese Papers Are Liars!
- IWD: Tengku Adnan whacks women bloggers
- Just for Fun :: Tourism Minister Calls “All Bloggers Liars”
- Lets play logical fallacy bingo
- Lying Women Bloggers
- Malaysia Bodoh
- Malaysia Bodoh
- Malaysian bloggers are female bums, and a Tourism Minister …
- Malaysia’s Tourism Minister is a “dimwit”
- New Bolehland Politickus statistics finding : Bloggers are Liars …
- Nila Tanzil, Tengku Adnan, Jurnalisme, & Blog
- OMG Here Comes Another Dimwit Minister
- Oops, here we go again!If you don’t read Chinese…
- Penyakit kaki di dalam mulut
- Plain Rude
- Rape me please because I wear short skirts
- Shame on Malaysia
- Stupid Cupid: Law Against Stupidity
- Tak Sesuai
- Tales from Bolehland
- Tengku Adnan : ” All Bloggers are liars!”
- Tengku Adnan is a male chauvinistic PIG Tengku …
- Tengku Adnan, please speak up..
- Tengku Adnan: Bloggers are liars!
- Tengku adnan: chauvinist extraordinaire
- Tengku Adnan’s “dead” Part ll
- Tiny Update
- Tipu
- Tourism Minister Calls “All Bloggers Liars”
- Tourism Minister Tengku Adnan (left) was quoted by…
- Tourism Minister,Tengku Adnan Says:”ALL Bloggers Are Liars. 80 …
- Unemployed + woman + blogger = liar
- Visit Bolehland 2007 – 50 Nefarious Years
- VMCC: New Decease Found
- w00t~ I am been called a liar in the papers!!
- Whipping Women Into Submission
- Why I started blogging?
- Why the finger-pointing?
- Women angered by Sexual Slurs
- Women Bloggers are not liar : Nila Tanzil Saga
- WTF?!!
- Ye shall shut up
- 天馬行空 + 妙想天開
- 10000 liars…
To the Minister, I wish to make it clear that we. men and women bloggers, also love our country. We are always proud to be Malaysians. We play our parts promoting Malaysia, local or abroad. We do what we can in our capacity. We hope you do too. If you can’t handle the public criticsm professionally, you might as well don’t open your mouth… alas you hurt many innocent Malaysians who love their country just as much as you do if not more and tarnish the image of Malaysia in general.
To Nila and her fellow journalists, I can’t really tell whether what happened during the trip were 100% true, but knowing the level of competency and childish attitudes among selected few Malaysian government politicians, officials and civil servants, that was hardly a surprise. On behalf of peace loving and responsible Malaysian citizens, please accept our apology for the way you had been treated in your recent visit and please also accept our apology and deepest regret on the way our Tourism Minister had responded to your report in your blog.
Read also Lying Women Bloggers
Tengku Adnan Said So by Nurina, Confessions of a Compulsive Liar by Kak Teh, M’sia: 66 ‘lying’ bloggers by Susan Loone, IWD: Tengku Adnan whacks women bloggers by Elizabeth Wong, And just when we thought we were getting somewhere… by Marina Mahathir.
[tags]bloggers liars, Nila Tanzil, Tengku Adnan, Tourism Minister, Visit Malaysia Year 2007, women bloggers[/tags]
16 Comments
[...] A Malaysian Minister had branded bloggers as liars… he also said of 10,000 unemployed bloggers, 8,000 are women. I am not sure whether he meant these 10,000 bloggers are Malaysian or not but he certainly rocked the boat. As bloggers, I feel sad, disappointed and angry…[...]
[...] Bloggers are liars….Malaysian Tourism Minister off tangent [...]
Dugg
Everyone who read Nila Tanzil article in Maverick’s Blog, must suspect that Nila was “Programmer” that travelling show.
BLUNDER!
Nila only a freelance presenter – not journalist – who was hired for 6 months.
Her task in this agenda only speaking in front camera, with script that was made by the Producer.
Related all of them were composed by the Producer.
My opinion, Nila was shock and most startled, when crew got difficulty for cover the place of the place that was expected interested.
However for journalists that incident would not matter that often has been experienced during covered anything and anyplaces.
Nila was not happy, because did not have habit as journalist, then she repaid to write it.
Journalist will not do that.
Nila wrote : “Being a PR myself, I couldn’t believe how the Malaysia Tourism Board didn’t understand what the media needed”
How come as a PR consultant she can not think clearly.
Necessarily she knew, “comitment” between two coorporate that was co-operating, if having the problem could be completed together.
And not for public.
Bad PR for herself and her office “MAVERICK’S”.
Very important from all.
this incident was begun resulting from the staff’s mistake Malaysian Tourism Board that was Indonesian, and did not have the experience in Malay.
Then.. is there anybody asked 90 journalist that was invited also to Malay?
Is there they complain like Nila?
So?
Fatima
Fatima, you offer an interesting view. I have never tought the case from the perspective you are putting your points across… but that is because I am not a juornalist. I appreciate your comment and feedback… I will create a special post for this so that visitors and readers following this case will have a chance to look at this case from another perspective.
[...] My post about Malaysian Minister’s calling bloggers liars had been getting a lot of hits and attracted some comments from readers. But a comment from one Fatima really make me thinking [...]
The Royal Minister should have been advised that Perception Audit plays a significant role in Promotion and Branding.
Whether Nila is a whining ‘maverick kid’ is another matter altogether!
Baiti, that’s exactly the point the bloggers are trying to make.. but those people are not listening I think.
It’s about time they take constructive criticism professionally; only then, the country can move forward
Wow… this is such a news for me. I’m not surprised with those remarks because it came from an “old school” mentality… and politican some more!
Indonesia is such an impoverished country that it should do something about itself before ” helping ” others out. It is just so funny that our Ministry of whatsoever seemingly of such a high status has to stoop so low for help. And don’t the officers carry any official identification issued by the MY government so as to make their job easier ?
Tengku Adnan was being emotional when he immediately judged all bloggers to be liars. In a way, this incident made him open his eyes to a lot of the Indons who love to lie. If he is to say that Malaysian bloggers are liars too, that means he betrays his own countrymen.
Bloggers are ordinary people with views on their own. Just because the government says something, we all have to be like robots and obey in an unquestioning manner. This means that we have never come out from the colonial system. Physically we are independent. Mentally we let ourselves stay locked in those times.
Why do I blog ? I blog because I want you all to know what is going on instead of relying on some heresay, SMS, telephone call and even a so called official black and white document that could amount to defamation.
[...] Instead, thanks to Tengku Adnan’s, Malaysia’s Tourism Minister, calling all bloggers are liar, (read More Liars by Nuraina) referring to the blog post by Nila Tanzil. The un-called for comments had caused major havoc over the blogosphere. Still hot from the sense unity among bloggers due to highly successful Bloggers United campaign, countless bloggers joined the club in condemning Tengku Adnan’s remark. Bloggers were the talk of the town once again. [...]
[...] Jam sebelas lewat tiga puluh menit tujuh puluh tujuh detik siang tadi, jam dinding tua rumahku masih semangat berdetak saat Metro TV mengudara dengan e-Lifestyle nya. Mengusung topik “Blog Sebagai Media Alternatif”. Acara ini nampaknya menarik perhatianku. Setelah biasanya cukup bosan memelototin Bung KRMT Roy Suryo ngoceh sana-sini tentang dunia IT Endonesyah yang rajin nongol di acara ini. Bagaimana tidak, cuplikan acara ini pun saya yakin cukup menuai penasaran pemirsanya. Malaysia Tourism Minister yang mengatakan “Bloggers are liars” karena gerah dikritik oleh Nila Tanzil , jurnalis SCTV yang menghadiri undangan Floral Festival 2007 dalam rangkaian visit malaysia 2007 , yang mengaku kecewa atas perlakuan negeri Jiran atas pelayanan yagn diberikan. Menteri tersebut yang seolah ingin mengatakan JANGAN PERCAYA BLOGGER, MEREKA PEMBOHONG! Pembohong? Itukah yang seharusnya dikatakan oleh “Trully Asia” setelah mendapatkan kritik dari tamunya yang mengungkapkan kekecewaan? Saya rasa sebuah tindakan yang tak bijak SAMA SEKALI! Paranoidkah penyakit baru Malaysia setelah mendapat “teman baru” yang lebih gagah dan terbiasa semena-mena itu ? [...]
[...] Thanks to NST and the four individuals that started the defamation suit against Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan aka Rocky. Thanks also to Tengku Adnan for calling Malaysian bloggers are liars over Nila Tanzil’s revelation of her experience with Malaysia Tourism Board. Thank you so much to Kementerian Dalam Negeri (Internal Affair Ministry)for issuing directive to mainstream medias not to quote bloggers in their reportings. And the latest thank you is to none other than Shaziman Abu Mansor , the Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Energy, Water and Commnication, for bringing up in the Parliment seating, the idea of registering Malaysian bloggers. [...]
I am not suprised of hearing such remarks from a Malaysian minister. On one hand, we hear of push for equality, and on the other, we see blazing inequality, such as 97% of ministry workers are Malays, less than 1% of its upper management are non-Malays. I guess Malaysian ministries find that non-Malays must be stupid, unqualify, unskilled, or, they must be bloggers!
[...] di Malaysia yang menuduh kebanyakan blogger wanita (termasuk blogger Indonesia, Nila Tanzil) sebagai pembohong, beberapa blogger Malaysia yang dilaporkan ke polisi, bahkan ditangkap tanpa alasan yang jelas, dan [...]