Sarawak Report
Sarawak Report has received a copy of the actual letter and contract sent by FBC Media Chairman, Alan Friedman, to Chief Minister Taib Mahmud, outlining their illegal PR campaign.
The total cost for FBC’s ‘Global Strategic Communications Proposal’ came to $5 million in the first year alone in a campaign designed to last at least 3 years.
Sources close to BN have told us that the project was first outlined verbally in meetings between Alan Friedman and the Chief Minister, after the FBC Media Chairman was invited to Kuching at the start of the year.
Separate divisions?
In a recent statement issued through lawyers to the UK’s Independent Newspaper FBC Media have attempted to defend their PR activities, claiming that the ’commercial division’ and ‘production division’ of the company “are and always have been quite separate and distinct”.
However, we can show that Alan Friedman, who was clearly masterminding the multi-million dollar PR deal, also doubled up as the Executive Editor of the company’s flagship World Business programme, produced weekly for CNBC.
‘Happy Penan’ who has found a town job featured by World Business
Shortly after the Taib contract was delivered, a major item about Sarawak duly appeared on World Business, raising questions about how separate those divisions are actually kept!
Indeed, the World Business item, called Deforestation in Sarawak, can only be described as falling far beneath the normal standards of objective reporting.
The show, which provided extensive justification for the Chief Minister, featured a line up of employees and political allies as if they were objective commentators, and even allowed him to suggest that 80% of Sarawak’s jungle has remained untouched!
To add insult to injury, a ‘happy Penan tribesman’ was also featured talking about how he had benefitted from ‘progress’. However, there was no mention of the years of desperate blockades which have been mounted by his own people against Taib’s corrupt logging, or of the protests by numerous other native groups, who have been shoved out of their lands to make way for logging, dams and oil palm with no compensation or opportunity to profit.
Separate divisions? – Alan Friedman acted as Interviewer and Executive Editor of World Business, as well as the company’s negotiator with clients like Taib Mahmud.
In February, BBC World’s One Square Mile, also produced by FBC Media, had again given the impression that Taib was doing the best possible for the indigenous forest people. Once again the Executive Producer of the Programme was none other than Alan Friedman!
The reporter, Rian Maelzer, avoided discussing the problems caused by land grabs and corruption, claiming instead that:
“Separate and distinct”? – Sales and Output were headed by the same person for FBC in Sarawak – Alan Friedman.
“For the past 40 years, the Malaysian government has practised an affirmative-action policy aimed at raising the living standards of indigenous groups”
Thus, despite the international condemnation of Taib Mahmud by environmentalists and human rights organisations, viewers of CNBC and BBC would have been left with the impression that Taib Mahmud was a benign governor, beloved of his people.
The BBC has now gone public with a statement acknowledging that it had been misled by Alan Friedman and FBC Media.
The broadcaster has confirmed that it has suspended all programming commissioned by the company pending a thorough enquiry. Yesterday in news items and on its website the corporation announced:
“FBC has admitted to the BBC that it has worked for the Malaysian government. That information was not disclosed to the BBC as we believe it should have been when the BBC contracted programming from FBC.
“Given this, the BBC has decided to transmit no more programming from FBC while it reviews its relationship with the company.” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14556988
CNBC has likewise suspended FBC Media programmes in the wake of our reports. We have, of course, further revealed that FBC has publicly stated that its arrangement with the global US-based broadcaster was that it would provide the programmes for free and raise its money from ‘sponsorship’. If this claim by FBC Media in its own Annual Report is true, then CNBC has serious questions to answer to regulators, such as Ofcom in the UK and the Federal Communications Commission in the USA.
Given these developments and the fact that the Malaysian Insider news blog has now reported that the Malaysian government has severed its contract with FBC Media, Sarawak Report would like to ask on behalf of Sarawak’s taxpayers whether Taib Mahmud has also severed his own contract (see below)?
What we can do for $5 million – Friedman’s grovelling letter to Taib Mahmud on January 20th Continue reading ‘We Release The Documents – Exclusive Proof!’
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