Under probe FBC shuts down sites

Investigative portal Sarawak Report is celebrating the death of its Taib Mahmud-sponsored namesake

KUCHING: UK-based FBC Media, which Chief Minister Taib Mahmud commissioned for RM5 million to counter global reports against him in the run up to the April 16 state election, has pulled back on its online network which was spewing out ‘feel good’ reports on Sarawak.

FBC Media had allegedly commissioned a team of Republican bloggers in the United States to write a series of attacking articles. Among the websites FBC allegedly sponsored were the New Ledger, Malaysia Watcher and the infamous Sarawak Report(s) with an ‘s’.

The sites were commissioned as part of Taib’s cyberwar campaign to counter widespread reports about Taib’s unexplainable wealth, extensive business networks abroad, land policies which have led to massive deforestation in Sarawak and displacement of the state indigenous communities.

Apparently the last site to go down was the fake Sarawak Reports.

Celebrating the death of its namesake, the real Sarawak Report posted a report on its blog today claiming credit for blowing the lid off on FBC Media’s unethical practices which included producing allegedly ‘illegal TV programmes commissioned by Taib’ and Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak.

FBC’s dollar-deals with Najib and his Barisan Nasional administration came to light when it was disclosed in Parliament recently that the government spent RM94 million of the rakyat’s money to promote the PM and the country’s image.

FBC’s ‘opportunities’ for Taib

After much denials, Putrajaya last month ended its contract with FBC after irrefutable proof of reports surfaced alleging that government leaders had appeared regularly in paid-for interviews on global television programmes on CNBC.

It was apparently Najib who had also recommended Taib to FBC Media to save his (Taib) waning image abroad.

In a direct deal with Taib, FBC’s chairman, Alan Friedman had promised the CM “a series of opportunities to improve his poor reputation on human rights and the environment.”

Among these ‘opportunities’ was a report on CNBC’s Business World which reported that “80% of Sarawak’s forests have been left undamaged and untouched” by Taib’s logging and oil palm plantations.

More reports in a similar vein were also produced for other leading global networks such as BBC and CNN.

After Sarawak Report broke the scandal, both BBC World and CNBC terminated its contracts with FBC Media, pending investigations.

The UK regulatory authority, Ofcom, is also now conducting a full-scale investigation into FBC’s practices.