BERNAMA "journalism" at its best ....

Student denies praising PM's speech in Australia
~Malaysiakini

Nigel Aw
Sep 5, 11
3:55pm

A Malaysian student, who was at a dinner held for Najib Abdul Razak in Perth, has denied praising the premier's speech, as reported by national news agency Bernama.

Malaysiakini managed to track down the student through a social networking website, and found that he had already posted a complaint that the report had distorted his words.

When contacted, he expressed surprise over the report, as he had made the comments prior to Najib's speech.

Requesting anonymity as he is a government scholar, the student expressed genuine excitement about meeting the prime minister but did not praise the speech as he had not listened to it yet.

"They totally changed and added stuff that we never said. And the whole thing was done before the speech ... I feel it is rather silly and unnecessary," he said.

"They... put in quotes that we actually did not say and altered our words. We did not say anything bad so I don't see why they needed to do that.”

Malaysiakini learnt that the students were asked to write their comments on a piece of paper prior to the speech, which was subsequently used to process the Bernama report.

Asked what the student had really thought of the speech, he described it as it as "formal" and "nothing special".

"It was a formal event, there was nothing special and the speech was pretty much formulated, promoting 1Malaysia. It was the usual speech," he said.

Another of the nine students quoted in the report, when contacted through the social networking website, also confirmed that additions were made to the quotes in a tone that praised the speech, but she declined to elaborate.

The dinner, announced via the Malaysian Students' Council of Australia's Facebook page, was held at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Perth last Saturday.

According to MASCA's Facebook invitation, the dinner was open to students sponsored by the Public Service Department, Mara and Petronas.

Also present at the event was Najib's wife, Rosmah Mansor, and officials from the Malaysian mission.