EXCLUSIVE While the Umno-owned Malay language daily Utusan Malaysia has been under fire from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Pakatan Rakyat parties, even the Umno elders themselves are saying enough is enough.

Umno secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor revealed that party leaders are wary of the occasional hardline editorial stance of the newspaper and have taken upon themselves to “advise” the editors.

“We have spoken to them. We are unhappy with certain things that they wrote. We told them, ‘please write responsibly and write the truth’.

NONE “We have told them to toe the party line,” he said.

In a recent exclusive interview with Malaysiakini , Tengku Adnan ( right ) had also attempted to distance the party from Utusan ’s way of reporting.

“You can say that it is owned by Umno, but we don’t control the newspaper. It’s not fair (to blame Umno). It is controlled by certain editors.

“We have also raised our concerns. It is not right what ( Utusan ) has done, but these are just individuals, you know. I don’t know what they want to achieve.

“But it’s not Umno’s instructions,” he said.

Blame game in Utusan

However, he said that the newspaper on its whole should not be blamed over the actions of the editors, echoing NUJ president Hata Wahari’s statement .

“You cannot blame the whole of Utusan just because of some editors. Like with Malaysiakini , I can’t blame the writers because maybe they side with certain individuals,” said Tengku Adnan.

But when asked how the senior editors receive the “feedback” from their political masters, they were apparently full of excuses.

NONE “We have spoken to them, told them not to write these sort of things. They said ‘normal lah , it’s the journalists lah , not us lah ’,” said Tengku Adnan with a smile.

“I've owned newspapers. I know this. I owned (now defunct Harian ) Watan before, and I had owned 15 percent of The Star ’s shares before.

“(The editors) said ‘no lah ’. I know, they need to sell papers,” he laughed.

However, he said the circulation should be secondary when national unity is at stake.

“When you’re a journalist, you have to write responsibly. Use your mind, not hurt the other races’ feelings,” he said.

Circulation overtaken by tabloids

Utusan, at one time, was the best-selling Malay daily in the country until they were overtaken by tabloids Harian Metro and Kosmo . Some have attributed the dip in circulation to the racially-tinted reporting as well as their far-right wing stance.

utusan mahathir malay losing power 240910 The NUJ had also blamed “unethical reporting” on their part, saying that the Utusan editors sometimes do not give the right of reply to Pakatan politicians, even when the story is directly about them.

However, Umno and the newspaper were on a collision course a few weeks ago when the daily had questioned party leaders including Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar who had rebuked Malay rights NGO Perkasa.

Things reached a climax when an editor, using the pseudonym ‘Awang Selamat’, had hit out at Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz who had questioned the daily’s sincerity in supporting the 1Malaysia concept.

Nazri had then written a scathing open letter , reminding the daily of who their owners are.