Scooped, but not served
Inside tips, comms theatre, and the stories behind the stories.
🚨 Housekeeping: The initial copy contained errors with regard to Kuala Lumpur-based accelerator ScaleUp and its portfolio companies. These have been fixed.
Yesterday I decided to poke around while chasing down a tipoff.
The company’s comms liaison — apparently moonlighting as chief inquisitor and truth prefect — denied the query, then escalated into this little North Korea-lite number:
Kids these days — peak PR school energy. A simple “No” or “No comment” suffices. It’s cheaper than cosplay authoritarianism.
Hmmm… so false information that doesn’t risk damaging the group’s reputation is fine? Ok, ok, I’ll stop.
Quick disclaimer: the “thought-police” memo above has nothing to do with the companies or individuals named in this article. It was from a different story altogether, but just too good not to share as a specimen of corporate comms in the wild.
First, the usual ICYMI:
Now, in today’s bag of incisive moves and other updates, we have:
→ Anwar’s subsidy and anti-graft blueprint under the microscope
→ The revival of a telco’s corporate VC
→ Another semiconductor-focused fund making rounds
→ Malaysian football’s broken finances laid bare (a final update)
The Malaysianist is fuelled by subscriptions. I offer monthly, annual and founding plans for individuals.
There are also group options if you are mulling bulk purchases for family, friends or colleagues.
It’s been a while since I wrote a broad political brief.
But let’s unpack two of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s recent initiatives: i) Budi95 targeted RON95 subsidy and ii) the “Keep Malaysia Clean” (KMC) anti-corruption blueprint.
Budi95 caps petrol at RM1.99/litre for citizens via MyKad, with a 300-litre quota. Non-citizens pay market rates (roughly RM2.60).