Annuar Musa accuses WSJ of peddling fake news about Malaysia

For many decades the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has been attacking and trying to topple the Umno-led government and now even United States figures say the WSJ sells fake news, said Umno information chief Annuar Musa.

Annuar, in a statement, today said Malaysia has long experience of the fake news, politically motivated lies and distortions published by WSJ.

"This Israeli propaganda paper has targeted successive Umno-led governments. It has condemned them for supporting the development of the Malays as well as the other races in the country.

"It wishes to impose its own liberal secularist extremist agenda on Malaysia, and has shown blatant favouritism for the opposition for at least the last 19 years," he said.

Annuar said WSJ was also an avid supporter of the illegal Iraq war which has devastated the Middle East, destroyed a country, led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and was "directly responsible for the rise of Islamic State".

Annuar said it was unfortunate that many people around the world were unaware of WSJ's true face but Malaysia was far from alone in knowing that the WSJ was not to be trusted while numerous Americans knew that too.

He elaborated that Minnesota Democrat senator Al Franken had described the WSJ as "intentionally misleading" and referred to as "standard Wall Street Journal distortion".

"The Huffington Post has accused the WSJ of publishing blatant misrepresentations and distortions of facts to sell war and sanctions.... that will starve ordinary people.

"The Centre for American Progress has accused the WSJ of deliberate distortions for reasons of ideological obsession. This world-renowned think tank refers to the 'once respected Wall Street Journal' as perpetrating the 'deliberate spread of misinformation'," he said.

Other than that, Salon magazine has also accused WSJ of trying to discredit and discard anyone who they could not control.

Meanwhile, founder of Westport-based hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio, has characterised WSJ's reporting as being full of intentional distortions besides being part of an epidemic of fake and distorted news that threatened society's well-being.

"Sensationalism and commercialism have superseded accuracy and journalistic integrity as primary objectives. Many, if not most, journalists are trying to write the story that they want to write and fit the facts to it rather than accumulating facts to accurately report pictures of what is true," Annuar said.

He said Dalio had accused Bradley Hope, a journalist who has often written about Malaysia for the WSJ, as having a history of writing misleading stories and relying disproportionately on disgruntled people.

"That includes plenty of disgruntled people who have been desperately trying to overthrow Malaysia's democratically-elected government. WSJ reporters choose not to convey anything that didn't fit with the story they wanted to write," he added.

Responding to Dalio's essay on the WSJ, another American businessperson described the paper as "trying to be more of a reality show than a news organisation", according to Annuar.

"For too long the WSJ has been peddling fake news about Malaysia, handed to them by selfish individuals who would happily see their country undermined if it serves their own, selfish personal political interests.

"Malaysians should listen to the voices of Americans who know that the WSJ ignores the facts in pursuit of its own partisan political agenda. The WSJ has become nothing more than a propaganda outlet and willing vehicle for the Malaysian government's political opponents," he added.

- Bernama