We can’t trust the Malaysian mass media anymore

April fool. You can say I’m an old fart just being too sensitive. Go ahead. I don’t mind, but this is my blog, and I speak things.

I was told that the news below is an April fool’s joke.

Borneo Post David Beckham
The news which was said to be an April Fool’s joke

I don’t find it funny. There was no disclaimer, and such news gets some people with interest hyped up. As a fan of Sarawak football, I am pumped, although the news is far from being true, at this age, anything is possible. Beckham is 37, and you never know. Some say it’s too good to be true, but not impossible considering Johor signed Guiza, a Spannish football star.

A few months ago, a friend made an online joke using Twitter. His attempt was less credible as the account he created to impersonate the so called ‘Uncle Swee Kang’ was known to be a fake and was just merely to ‘troll’.

It was not long after when the troll was picked up by another known ‘troll’ site based in KL, and it became huge news.

Blogserious Pandelela swee kang
HarianMetroll, a popular troll blog

Those not familiar with these sites were quick to believe, and free loaders were eager to make a beeline at Swee Kang for their free ice kacang.

Among them, were reporters who were eager to get the news for their paper. You’d guess what happened when they found out the news was not true. They were furious.

Soon after, a column was written about the incident with the headline “Grow up, pranksters“. The reporter obviously found it not funny. In the column, he was slamming the joke and the pranksters, while trying to understand how was it ‘fun’. He definitely found it not funny. Even the ones making the joke stopped laughing after knowing it had gone too far.

But then again, it was a known joke/prank, and as I said above, those knowing the sources will know it was not true.

Today is the first day of April, and I was told that a local newspaper with a publishing permit has decided to post the news above. I was told it was not the first time. I’m too lazy to dig up the old prank, so I’ll just believe when I was told so.  I MUST NOTE that I may be wrong about this being a prank.

But the circumstances are different to the prank about Swee Kang.

While the prank posted above may not bear such serious consequences, but it would make a few people look like fools when they, with all their might try to justify the fact that the news is valid. I bet these people would be angry if they knew it was a prank. To make it even worst, they got the source from a well known newspaper. It wasn’t a blog, or an online forum. It was a proper newspaper portal. To many unsuspecting readers, it was news ‘good to go’. It was believable.

I am not sure how many of you would feel, but I felt somewhat betrayed.  I would be much more welcoming if such news or prank came from a blog, because we have been told again and again to ‘not trust blogs’ and ‘social media postings’, but THIS…

Guess the opposition parties got it right. We can’t trust our mass media anymore.

DISCLAIMER: Until now, I am not sure if the article by the paper is a prank, but lets wait for tomorrow and see if an apology is written. Either way, the article is written with no credible sources quoted.

 

error: Sorry.

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