news feature

For a newspaper riddled with debt - some RM200 million since 1994 - and lately eclipsed by controversy, it should come as no surprise that The Sun has resorted to getting feng shui advice to counter the negative chi (energy).

A Christmas day exclusive of a plot to assassinate the country's top two leaders spelt the dawn of a troubled era for the seven-year-old daily. News agencies pounced on the report and circulated it worldwide, irking Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

This led to the resignation and suspension of several, including senior, editorial staff. And the management has sought the ancient art's help to ward off the misfortune.

Sources say geomancers have visited the daily's five-storey building in Petaling Jaya and the management, based on their advice, has changed the colour of the daily's logo from red and black to all-red as it is more 'auspicious' for business.

However, on the editorial floor, things are anything but auspicious, say journalists. There is intense speculation that a large number of employees would be laid off and that the management is planning to shut down its state bureaus.

"Some 40 heads are on the chopping board," said a source who added to date about 10 editorial staff have been terminated.

Disastrous meeting

The staff recently called for a meeting with the management to clear the air about the suspensions and resignations. However, it degenerated into a series of mini-lectures on journalism instead.

The 50-odd staff including journalists were told about the principles of 'good journalism' ranging from evidence gathering to how to write reports by lawyer VK Lingam, the daily's newly appointed 'overseer'.

"The meeting was a disaster. The new management demonstrated extreme high-handedness when taking questions from the floor," a journalist told malaysiakini .

"Lingam talked in a loud voice. We felt intimidated," added the journalist who requested anonymity.

The lawyer, who was just appointed deputy chairperson of Sun Media Corp then, allegedly told a reporter to "shut up" when she queried about the daily's front-page apology published on Dec 27.

The apology, which was written by a non-editorial staff, expressed the daily's regret for publishing the assassination plot story, adding that the allegations in it were 'baseless'.

No bylines

However, journalists say they are standing by the news written by R Manirajan and Anita Md Nasir (both of whom are currently suspended). And as a sign of protest, they have been refusing bylines for their stories.

"The management has accused us of being interrogative and confrontational," said the journalists.

"We are furious with their (management's) arrogance and trampling over our integrity and dignity," they added.

Lingam, who earned notoriety when media reports revealed that he was photographed holidaying with former chief justice Eusoff Chin in New Zealand in 1994, is part owner of the daily.

Since the controversy erupted, Sun journalists have staged several pickets calling for the reinstatement of their colleagues and to protest the company's delay of a one-month bonus which was due to be paid by the end of last December.

The company also owes its staff another month's bonus which is supposed to be made over a three-month instalment starting February.

Apart from Manirajan and Anita, others suspended are managing editor Chong Cheng Hai and chief news editor Robert Ho. Executive director and editor-in-chief H'ng Hung Yung and editor Andy Ng have since resigned.