Thursday 6 March 2008

Election In The Air


News & Features, The Star,

Election coverage on air

MALAYSIANS go to the polls on Saturday. The exercise is to decide who gets to govern the nation over the next five years.

The run-up to our general election (Malaysia’s 12th to date) this weekend, meanwhile, seems to be getting good coverage on Radio24.

The round-the-clock bilingual broadcaster in Bahasa Malaysia and English which is operated by the Bernama News Agency in Kuala Lumpur is currently running a special two-hour weekday talk show on the elections.

Named Hello Pilihan Raya and aired only in Bahasa Malaysia, the programme can be heard today until Friday at 8pm.

Listeners will not only be able to know more about the many political and social issues in the country but also acquire a better background understanding at the end of the shows.

These will be provided by the many prominent political personalities who are invited to proffer their views in the studio. The guests range from political analysts to ex-politicians and observers.

On Saturday listeners can expect to hear voting and result updates from what the station describes as “hot” locations around the country.

These include the states of Kelantan, Terengganu, Sabah, Sarawak, Kedah, Perlis and Perak.

Radio24’s anchors will also be able to rely on the support of Bernama’s own team of news journalists when presenting their live-crossovers and news reports on the broadcast.

Whilst the bad news is that Radio24 can only be heard at the present time by listeners in the Klang Valley on the frequency of FM 93.9MHz – the good news is that people living outside the stipulated area can tune in to the FM broadcaster via the Internet. All one has to do is to got to www.radio24.com.my.

On Radio24’s homepage, web surfers will also find the latest news updates on the general election as a tasty treat.

Recently, quite a few independent bloggers apparently gave the thumbs up to Radio24 for having conducted a poll last month where it was revealed that 80% of its respondents felt that blogs did not jeopardise the democratic process of our nation.

The results of the poll findings were broadcast over Radio24. Well done!

And speaking of alternative views, Melbourne’s Radio Australia ran a news feature last week on our elections.

The Asia Pacific segment of the international broadcaster highlighted a number of interesting topics in the country by speaking to Tian Chua, the information chief for the opposition Keadilan party and social anthropologist Professor Shamsul Amri Baharuddin, Director of the Institute of Ethnic Studies from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Despite living in the cyber age, the writer insists that radio still provides a unique window on the world. When he isn't scanning bandwidths, he helps to raise awareness of positive living with pets through his organisation, Petpositive (Malaysian Animal-Assisted Therapy for the Disabled and Elderly Association).