Public relations agency boycotts ‘Utusan’ for racist propaganda

By Emily Ding

KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — A public relations agency has announced that it will boycott newspaper Utusan Malaysia for any media-related engagements in its stand against what it calls “racism-inciting media propaganda”.
A day after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak blamed the Barisan Nasional’s (BN) lacklustre results in the 2013 general election on a “Chinese tsunami” against the party, the Umno publication published a front-page article yesterday similarly blaming the Chinese for dividing Malays in the country, headlined “Apa lagi Cina mahu? (What else do the Chinese want?)”
“Pi PR will halt its support to Utusan Malaysia for any media-related engagement. As a responsible Malaysian PR agency, it is imperative to make a stand against blatant racist-based editorials,” Pi PR Consultancy Sdn Bhd’s managing director Lee Ting Ting said in a statement today.
“Although PR agencies depend on a close working relation with all media channels, however the business and media community needs to abhor blatant racist propaganda.”
Related story: Dr M blames ungrateful Chinese and greedy Malays for BN’s worst performance
She also said that Utusan’s racist remarks have unsettled the majority of the moderate-view business community.
The agency also called for all Malaysian media to stop accepting race-specific job advertisements.
“Accepting such advertisements only encourage a further divide in Malaysia’s multi-culture nature. It is clearly discriminative to Malaysians and is a dis-service to all the hard efforts in fighting for meritocracy in the workforce,” Lee said.