News racks turn yellow on Bersih day 2

After the massive turnout at the start of the Bersih 4 rally yesterday that saw at least 100,000 march to Dataran Merdeka, newspaper frontpages at the stands today were also steeped in the trademark yellow of the rallygoers.

A quick survey of the newspaper coverage saw the Chinese and Tamil dailies unanimously frontpaging full colour headlines of the rally, dominating the stands.

Malay dailies Mingguan Malaysia and Berita Harian too were not left out, although their spin on the rally was to be expected.

Berita Harian headlined 'Bersih 4 Tak Sayang Negara' (Bersih 4 does not love the country), while the Umno-owned Utusan's weekend edition Mingguan headlined 'DAP controls Bersih 4' maintaining the rally is "haram" (illegal).

Sinar Harian preferred to stay neutral going with the peaceful rally angle, 'Terkawal' (situation under control).

The Star on the English side with a full frontpage coverage headlined 'Rally stays peaceful'.

New Sunday Times, however, found the Bangkok blast more newsworthy for its frontpage headline, but managed to include a sidebar at the bottom with a photograph of the rally titled 'Not in Merdeka Spirit'.

Dr M makes Bersih headlines

While former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad's much-anticipated appearance at the rally made some of the other languages' frontpages, he ironically stayed invisible on the Malay headlines except for Sinar, which managed to include a bullet point 'Dr M turn demo Bersih' (Dr M shows up for Bersih demo).

Tamil Malar and Thina Kural meanwhile carried photographs of the long-serving former PM's visit on their frontpages, as did Guang Ming Daily with the caption 'Mahathir does a flashmob'.

However Sinar did carry a brief report on the flash visit yesterday evening on Page 2, as did Mingguan, on Page 3.

Mingguan continued to play up repeated claims that the rally is illegal on Page 2 and 3, and that it was DAP-controlled and the rallyers were "dominated by Chinese" and "mainly DAP supporters".

To labour the point its frontpage photos focused on DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang and Penang Chief Minister and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng giving speeches at the rally.

The Umno-owned daily also claimed traders faced losses because of the rally.

-malaysiakini-