Najib Razak had instructed and paid for a news portal to be set up to provide alternative news and combat fake news, a witness told the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.
The 16th witness at Najib’s SRC International trial, Onn Hafiz, 41, said his company Vital Spire ran MalaysianDigest.com on the former prime minister’s instructions.
The Johor Umno politician and great-grandson of Onn Jaafar added that the now-defunct news portal covered international and local news, as well as business, entertainment and sports on a daily basis.
“We wanted to give a balanced news for the general public, and combat fake news,” he said.
Onn said he received a cheque of RM240,000 from Najib on January 30, 2015 made to Vital Spire. He added that the cheque was cashed at the CIMB branch in Bukit Damansara, where his company is located.
“It was set up on the direction of Najib. I met him in PM’s office.”
These conspirators stole money from a public pension fund and used it to disseminate propaganda through a portal that then blatantly lied about it.
“We vehemently deny the utterly preposterous allegation made in the blog [that accused Malaysian Digest of being funded by the Prime Minister’s Department] and will offer no further comment,” was what the portal’s editor had said back in 2013.
And yet these same folk claim it was they who were countering ‘Fake News” from outfits like Sarawak Report, which was calling out the blatant corruption involved.
Sarawak Report can impart one valuable lesson to unfortunate members of the public who have to try to determine the truth from lies from these competing sources, which is that actual Fake News costs a fortune (Najib was paying out tens of millions in stolen cash to support his myriad phony operations) whereas the pure voice of truth, like nature, comes almost free.
Throughout this period Sarawak Report was sustained by small donations amounting to far less than RM5,000 a month that paid for its internet costs and the dissemination of emails to those who signed up for our content after the site was banned.
Other tell-tale signs are facts. Genuine reporting seeks verification through demonstrable supporting evidence, whereas Fake News mongers tend to rely on stirring up emotion and prejudice and making claims, which they leave unproven.