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by Little Bird Kawan-kawan, the General Elections are definitely near. Today, The Star newspaper did a first class screw up job of spinning the facts and numbers.
In its front page today, The Star says it hired one Dr Syed Arabia from the International Islamic University to conduct a survey. On the front page of today's Star paper, there is a huge bar chart which says the following: Economy 24%, Crime 22%, Social 16%, Foreign Immigrants 10%, Politics 9%, Unity 6%, Environment 3%, Internal/External Threats 2%, Traffic 2% and Leadership 1%. The Star's headlines these numbers as 'Bread and butter matters'. The first paragraph says the following: PETALING JAYA: The cost of living, social issues, the crime rate and illegal immigrants - these are the issues that matter most to Malaysian voters, according to a survey conducted ahead of the general election. These bread and butter issues are the prime concern of voters now. From this opening paragraph above we would assume that the numbers above represent the number of respondents who are worried about those things. In fact this is what The Star says: "Prof Dr Syed Arabia said 2% of respondents expressed concern over internal and external threats and considered the rising number of vehicles as a bane, while only 1% said leaders must be proven to be capable". These numbers tally exactly with the bar chart numbers on the first page. The bar chart does show that only 2% of respondents are worried about internal and external threats and traffic as a problem and only 1% are worried about the quality of the leadership. But this is as far as the similarity goes. After this it is bullshit by The Star all the way. In the very next paragraph The Star says "The survey revealed that 96% of respondents were concerned with the current economic situation such as the rising cost of consumer goods". But the bar chart on the front page says only 24% of respondents are concerned with the economy. Obviously The Star is burying the real results of the survey (the more embarrassing bigger numbers) in fine print inside the story and highlighting cooked up smaller numbers on the front page. This is called bullshitting, trying to make the BN look good. The Star's bar chart on the front page says 22% of respondents are concerned about crime. But inside the story the real results of the survey are as follows: "88% said they were worried about the incidents of crime in the country." The bar chart on page one says only 10% of respondents were concerned about foreign immigrants. They are downplaying the security threat posed by the foreign immigrants. On the inside pages however, the story says something else about foreigners: "The third main concern of the respondents was the influx of foreigners into the country, with 40% regarding it as a problem." There is a huge difference between 10% and 40%. Who is The Star trying to bullshit with this type of Darjah Dua arithmetic manipulation? Then all of a sudden, Dr Syed Arabia the man who conducted the survey for The Star starts talking like a Government spokesman: "However, Dr Syed Arabia said the Government did respond to these concerns. He cited the National Price Council as one of the measures taken to tackle the rising prices of consumer items and cost of living." This is really strange. In most cases professional pollsters only conduct polls honestly and present the results objectively. They do not try to justify or defend the results of the polls they conduct. But here Dr Syed Arabia, The Star's pollster from the Islamic University has become the Government's spokesman instead. “The prime minister himself has gone to the ground to initiate measures to beef up security, such as rehiring capable retired police officers,” said Dr Syed Arabia. Just to comment on Dr Syed Arabia's last point above, the Prime Minister's decision to hire retired policemen has become a sore joke among the Police. In Kuala Lumpur alone, 3,200 retired policemen were called up to Bukit Aman. Only 1,200 showed up. This included pensioners up to 70 years old who have no more teeth. Against much protest, they were forcefully conscripted to return to work. They were told that 'Ini perintah Perdana Menteri'. Retired policemen with ranks of sergeant and below had to be 65 years old or less. Sergeant-majors and above could be up to 70 years old. The oldest retired policeman conscripted back into service was 70 years old. Many are in poor health and out of shape. They can hardly handle firearms or undertake eight hour shift duties standing and patrolling around the country. But this is what is happening. Bullshit does not just happen. The Star promotes it.
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