By C C Pung
Sabah Justice of Peace
Tokoh Wartawan Sabah and FT Labuan
I don’t read the daily papers much because there aren’t many news stands nowadays and the newspapers have probably conceded the readership contest to social media.
I’m a believer that only literate people consumed news.
Like food, consumers of news are naturally discerning.
They prefer good.news that are well presented. The chefs are good and know their business.
Therefore, I think that whether it’s print or social media, readership is drawn by news quality.
I think the Sabah print media appears defeated by the social media either because news are sloppier than the social media or as bad, in which case the readers opt for the media that comes free.
Reading some headlines today convinced me that I haven’t missed much ignoring the few local papers.
One headline reads “DBKK’s 3-pronged campaign to tackle floating trash”.
The city Hall was responding to a blog about trash at KK’s waterfront.
The grand-sounding multi-prong ‘strategy” sounded encouraging to a city dweller like me who has lived with trash-choked rivers and un-swimmable beaches (like Likas).
The third prong talked about ‘using ‘technology, innovation, AI, digitalisation, etc’ but, without backing up any such example with any detail.
I have no reason to believe DBKK at all.
Like many officials, the DBKK ones are probably just trying to hide behind big words.
We’ve had the trash problems since the 20th century.
DBKK has for the longest time been unsuccessfully trying to have a reliable user-friendly parking system which, I think, is much easier than monitoring trash.
Then there’s this “SMJ Energy declares RM50 million interim dividend to Sabah govt”.
SMJ Energy is among the newest govt-linked company in Sabah, which with more than 200 GLCs earns Sabah the title as the state with the most wasteful number of institutions.
The company was incorporated recently, 2023 or 2024.
The dividend was calculated up to end 2024. The annual account has probably not yet closed, much less audited.
If the speed with which SMJ Energy made enough money to pay dividend could be emulated by Sabah’s truckloads of failing GLCs, I should be counting on the Revival of the Mustapha-like Saham Amah Sabah!
It’s too much to expect our reporters and editors to be discerning and not too easily impressed.
But after an extended period of observing such gullibility, I’m convinced that there are practitioners out there who don’t even know that they don’t know.
They are like a bunch of artisans you counted upon to fix a problem only to discover that they don’t even know what the problem is.
Editor: The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of talantang.com
