Tweets help spread Umno Youth’s call

It was, perhaps, lucky that Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin's bold speech was broadcast live over Twitter on Wednesday, as its core message was barely covered by the Malay press the next day.

The Umno-linked Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian gave scant coverage to his call to the Malays to leave behind their siege mentality and shift from a mindset of Malay dominance to Malay leadership.

They focused on other portions of his speech that proposed financial assistance for young families, and Umno Youth's plans to attract more members.

“Perhaps that message did not jive with them,” Khairy, 33, told The Straits Times.

The cold response indicates that his views may not have traction on the Malay ground, but he said he never expected it to be a simple task.

He said he would persevere, and was glad to have gotten his message across to young Malaysians through the new media.

On Wednesday, Khairy's aide Shahril Hamdan sent out more than 50 updates from the Umno Youth chief's speech to users of the free Twitter service that allows them to broadcast to others through the Internet.

The online media also gave Khairy wide publicity. This is partly due to the enthusiastic embrace of new technology by youth.

Umno Youth secretary Abdul Rahman Dahlan also sent out several tweets and updates on Facebook to tell his followers what Umno deputy president Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin was saying to the party's three wings on Tuesday night.

Khairy sent out more tweets yesterday on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's speech to the assembly yesterday.

But other than the Youth wing, Umno is still ambivalent about the new media.

The Young Women's Wing (Puteri), which could be expected to adapt to the new media, seemed subdued compared with the young men.

Puteri chief Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin told The Straits Times that it had only started to use the new media.

Umno also continues to try to contain “unfair” media coverage by limiting access to online media.

Malaysiakini, The Malaysian Insider, Merdeka Review and The Nut Graph websites were denied press passes to the assembly.

Their journalists were barred from entering the halls to cover speeches and debates, but they could follow proceedings on live television feeds at the media centre.

Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor was quoted as saying by Malaysiakini last Friday: “We want the media to report in a fair and balanced manner. If you are not fair, if you sensationalise issues, you may not be allowed to attend.”

Umno's experiment with transparency two years ago had ended unhappily.

The live broadcast of the general assembly on television was stopped after it made Malaysians unhappy over the racially charged debate.


comments

The greated enemy of UMNO is itself!

All the talk about struggle should be about itself, not other races!!!

With Utusan like this, how to change?