breaking news

Veteran journalist Samad Ismail and two other top editors of English daily New Straits Times were fired with immediate effect yesterday.

Samad, editorial advisor to the The New Straits Times (NSTP) group, was sacked along with another editorial advisor, Mazlan Nordin, and an editorial consultant, Zainon Ahmad.

They received their termination letters, which was signed by the company's managing director Faiz Ishak, yesterday morning.

The shock termination came just shortly after Abdullah Ahmad was appointed as NSTP's chief group editor.

Abdullah was former political secretary to ex-prime minister Tun Abdul Razak and has close links with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

His post was formerly held by Abdul Kadir Jasin, who later relinquished the position after he bought over the Berita Publishing - which published a number of popular magazines - from the NSTP group.

No reasons given

Samad, who is popularly known as Pak Samad, was appointed the NSTP's editorial advisor about a year ago.

When contacted today, Pak Samad said that he was told that his contract with NSTP was earlier renewed by the group's former executive vice-president Abdul Rahman Maidin.

However, in what appeared to be a major overhaul of the NSTP's top management and editors, Abdul Rahman had relinquished his post last week.

"The letter did not state any reason for the termination," Samad told malaysiakini today.

It is believed that the changes were part of a move by Abdullah to consolidate his control over the group in his efforts to revamp the ailing media organisation.

The group's flagship NST has been losing readership over the past few years, with its circulation dropping to around 140,000 a day.

At present Ahmad Talib is still the NST 's group editor while Rejal Arbee remains as group editor of sister publication Berita Harian .