Wednesday, October 18, 2006

MOST ADMIRED PAPER

STAR PUBLICATIONS, which produces the best-selling English-language daily The Star, is in the top five of Wall Street Journal Asia's survey of the most admired companies this year.

Maxis Communications leads the pack, followed by Public Bank, DiGi.Com, YTL, Star, Genting, Resorts World, IOI World, UMW Holdings and Southern Bank.

Over 3,000 executives and professionals in 12 Asian countries took part in the survey. They were asked to rate companies based on their reputation, long-term vision, innovation, quality, and financial soundness.

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:36 pm

    IOI?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5:49 pm

    Bru,

    It would seem that many people do not want the Dr M-Pak Lah talks to go on this Monday, and I believe the NST is one of them.

    If you were to read the report in the NST today, it showed that it either failed or refused to appreciate the attempt to bring the two together by yet again lambasting Dr M, painting him as the bad guy, etc – the very thing they have been doing for the past few years.

    The NST too pressed the replay button. (Bru, for context perhaps you can post NST’s report today on P4)

    It is as if NSTP wants to be the “flint stone” or “batu api” even if one wants to forgive and forget. And don’t tell me about the need to give the report some historical perspective, other newspapers manage to do so without sounding petty and vicious.

    The NST fails to recognize what Ramadan and the coming Shawal mean to Malay/Muslim. During these months Muslims are told, among other things, to be more charitable to fellow human. Hence the willingness of Dr M to meet, and try to resolve his beef with Pak Lah. Now the outcome of the talks is for us to guess, but at least in the spirit of the season we should encourage truce, forgiveness, and peace.

    But Noooo, NST still feel it is spoiling for a role to get at Dr M. To the dudes at NST, the goal posts have been moved, and so have the rules been changed. The Malays want the two to meet, and make peace. While we were intrigued by events of the past few months, we nevertheless do not like them and do not want them anymore.

    But has NST been so desensitized to the feelings, custom, culture of the Malay/Muslim now as not to understand the significance of Ramadan and Shawal?

    sheesh

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  3. Anonymous9:34 pm

    mr tambourine man...
    Could I rephrase your last paragraph to..."But has NST been so desensitized to the feelings, custom, culture of Malaysians now as not to understand the significance of unity and totality?"

    Rocky, you must admit The Star has stayed at number one due to the ignorance of the silly marketing folks at NSTP which caused the downfall of MM and NST generally. Furthermore, The Star's attitude of 'not wanting to rock the boat' attitude secures most advertisers of not being associated with a too right or left winged daily.

    However, many out there admit The Star is 'too lembik' in its articles. It's commentary pieces are mundane. Yet, they can boast at being at the top. NST could have led all the way, but their arrogant ways saw their downfall and I will not be surprise to see them continue playing as bridesmaid.

    Transparency; editors and right winged observers claim the current ruling government is more transparent then before. I beg to differ. It claims to be transparent, but it is not. And they shouldn't have made transparency as an agenda as they now cant fulfill their obligations. The Legislative, Excutive and Judiciary are not seperate at all...in fact all three are controlled by one party. Is that transperancy?
    So much so, if you have read today's Letters Column in NST, the headlines was of a defensive letter with regards to the current lack of transparency issue in the Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) exams. Days before, many have voiced their dissatisfaction. Does the executive know UiTM churns out 1000 lawyers annually (and they don't need to sit for CLP) while this year saw 15% (77 students) graduates from foriegn universities passing the CLP exams. Is that transperancy?
    What about the billboard issue? Editors were told not to blow it up but only The Sun made a big deal out of it. Is that tranperancy?
    RMK9 was said to be over-budjeted, thus leading to the petrol subsidy being cut. Where is the transperancy in that?

    The list can go on and all points out to the lack of transparency. The Star is not transparent at all, but then again, so is the administration of any government. If one cannot cope with the issue, one shouldn't have made it an issue in the same place.
    I like to take what the Gerakan leader had to say, "..there is a Chinese saying, two people sleeping on the same bed with different dreams; one a beautiful dream, the other a nightmare"
    The govt thinks it's doing a beautiful job, but for the laymen..it's a nightmare.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous11:44 pm

    During the last days of December 2003, Kalimullah came to NSTP. He was the King, the Group Editor in Chief. He had more non-Malay than Malay friends and is proud of the fact that he is not a Malay himself (and someone told me Urdu is the language spoken at home?).

    He admired the Star, your fifth most admired company. So he shrunk NST to Star's size because Star was selling so many more copies (and still is). He changed the structure of the organization to be like the Star. He tried to use his political connection to control Wong Sulong the former Star GEIC.

    Lastly, seeing that there are so few Malays in the Star and so many in NST editorial, he sacked the Malay editors or made them take the vss. Many left. There some good ones left behind but many more good ones are doing something else outside the nstp.

    But does that get NST anywhere near the STAR? That's what you get putting a donkey to lead NST!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous5:12 am

    Leave it to Kali - to screw up & destroy anything that he touches!

    He aint called KALI for no nothing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:02 am

    The Man Who Sold The World said...

    "Does the executive know UiTM churns out 1000 lawyers annually (and they don't need to sit for CLP) while this year saw 15% (77 students) graduates from foriegn universities passing the CLP exams. Is that transperancy?"

    What does that have to do with transparency? Not all of those '1000' practices as advocates and solicitors anyway. 15% rate passing rate of CLP is expected.Many who sits for CLP are not pow-wow in the first place -minimum requirement for external law degree by University of London -credits at the SPM examinations (not including English) and 2 A Levels or 2 Principles at the STPM examinations.And if you care to be honest about the whole thing, non-bumi practicing lawyers continue to dominate the market.

    So stop the NST-style insinuations.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous12:49 pm

    Brett Heart...point taken.

    My question of transparancy was in the form of an examination which passes only 15% of students and yet does not tell you your marks.
    Anyway, no point repeating about this as it only falls on deaf ears.
    As for non-bumi lawyers dominating the scene, you ought to say 'underserving non-bumi lawyers'.
    Last but not least, please do not associate my writings to those practiced in NST.

    Happy Deepavali and Selamat Hari Raya!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous2:04 pm

    there was a time the NST was a newspaper to be admired. Why, there was a time so many Star reporters joined the NST, all at the same time! Kalimullah was one of them.

    But as someone said, a donkey is leading the NST.

    We rest our case.

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  9. i guess the meeting between PM & XPM should be live over national tv. if zam allowed live for mawi putus tunang and siti's wedding over national tv dont tell me this historic meeting is not important

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  10. Anonymous5:51 pm

    Hurray! MCA rules! Yes, it may have lost Nanyang but it still owns cash cow Star. Poor NST can try its darndest but how to beat those business-savvy folks?

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous9:02 pm

    NSTP is being run and led by kayu. I don't think the CEO understtands the newspaper business. GEIC is another kayu makan gaji buta. What is his coontribution to the co and the staffs.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous1:23 am

    to the first anonymous commentor, you seems to doubt IOI... pls check further on IOI to clear your doubts... one of the best and fastest growing company in malaysia...especially in oleochemical...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Anonymous4:33 pm

    So the Star is one of the top most admired newspapers? Big deal.
    The Star is admired not because it is a good paper but because it was printing money for its shareholders. Just look at its ad ratio. It is so full of ads that the news is secondary - its easily a ratio of 75% ads to 25%news.
    As to the quality of news there is nothing to shout about. It is so senitised as to 'meloyarkan'.
    Look at its business pages. The stories are nothing more than PR pieces. Why? Because the Star do not want to step on the toes of any corporate entity. It do not want to antagonise any company because they are all seen as advertisers or potential ones. So what do you expect.
    The people running the editorial also do not have ideas, so they even copied what the NST is doing. Not that what the NST is doing are that great. But it is of no concern to those running the Star editorial. Since their readership is so many times more than the NST, readers will not know that the Star is a copycat and bereft of ideas.
    Another thing that is happening in the Star since its beginning is the dearth of Malay reporters/editors. Have a look at their line up. Has there ever been a Malay appointed as an Editor there?
    But look at the NST, a so-called Malay (Umno controlled) entity. The non-Malays have never been denied their dues and in fact are now controlling the paper. There is not even one Malay on the Star's newsdesk. Yet the Malays are said to be chauvinists.
    Will the chinese in the Star allow the Malays to run their paper or appoint Malays as editors?
    So who is the chauvinist?

    ReplyDelete