I would like to report a death,
An unfortunate suicide I must confess,
The newspaper fell from the 14th floor,
Now it tells the truth no more.

An injury to the head, it seems,
Tongue missing, they heard no screams,
Autopsy shows poison in the ink,
Must explain why some headlines stink,

Stories spun into webs of lies,
For answers then, look to the skies,
Lips blue from chewing bribes,
The hole in integrity never looked this wide.

Yet blood that was found on grey concrete,
Belongs not to him that deservedly sleeps,
But hundreds of those who now lie cold,
Silenced swiftly for being bold.

Time of death, nobody knows,
Perhaps the day he sold his soul.
When your spine isn’t made of bone,
It’s time to carve your own gravestone.

So if you must cry, weep carefully,
It’s not like we lost some deity,
The news we knew was news no more,
Maimed by fear into foul folklore.

And if you must read, read between the lines,
Or thrust your ear to old grape vines,
The pen just died by its own sword,
We can rest in peace now, thank the Lord.

Rationale: The death of the newspaper as we know it. And a lot of us know a lot. It was propaganda that twisted the “news” surrounding the bombing of Palestine (or the Hamas if you like) by the Israelites. So we can believe that what we read isn’t real. All that ink used to write all those lies…you can say it’s the blood of the innocent being spilled onto papyrus. God bless Mr. Teoh and his family.

LoyarBurok postscript: Malaysian Mirror reported (July 28, 2009) that Malaysians are “less trustful of the media”.

Lisa Ng is a human being. She used to be a copywriter in the advertising industry. But now she just writes. For whatever helps us regain the lost art of "giving a toss" about the things that matter to...

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