Wednesday, March 26, 2014

MH370 Briefings - Punctuality at media briefings is a mark of respect and efficiency?

5.30pm - that is the scheduled time for the Daily Media briefings, but of late we see that the Acting Minister of Transport and his team are not punctual - To me, this is a sign of disrespect ....and it reflects badly on the perception of Malaysia. It is a sign of inefficiency? We may accept lateness once in a while - but then one should rightly apologize and explain the lateness.

Everyone is waiting - not just the media but also Malaysians and a lot of people all over the world, and our Acting Minister is late.

Like in Malaysian parliament at times, a question asked is sometime totally ignored and left unanswered. If you do not want to answer, just say that you will not be answering the question - good to also give a reason why no answers.

LANGUAGE - well, the answers are given in Bahasa Malaysia when the question is in Malay from our local journalist....and this is odd because this is not a media conference for just Malaysian media...but for the international media. So, it is not uncommon for a foreign journalist to ask again the same question whose answer was previously given in Malay... this is inefficient - better for the answers to be all in English, or if the answer is in Malay then immediately also follow up with an explanation and answer in English. I am sure that all Malaysia's journalist are fluent in English as well - and noting that many media carry these Media Briefings live ...BBC, Sky Net, etc... 

MEDIA - I am also rather disappointed by some of the questions asked by the media. It is almost as if they were not listening to the statement and the earlier question and answers. It looks that they have come with 'pre-prepared' questions and ask it again despite the fact that the answers have been given. Today, one journalist even directed one question to the MAS CEO, who obviously was not even present. 

Since it all started, there was much blame put on 'social media' for speculations, etc - but really, it was really mainstream media, and the various people that they interviewed and talked to that were speculating...or rather telling us what they think had happened, etc... Finally, the biggest mistake was made by Prime Minister Najib at 10pm one day when suddenly he told people that the plane had gone down in the sea....and from that hope was crushed - now, this was wrong as there is still to date no actual evidence to show that MH370 went down and all lives were lost ....I still have hope. Whether it went down or crashed in the sea near Australia, I still want to see some proof - that some part of MH370. Whether all lives were lost, well I still have hope...





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