Was there a typo in this report, "Eighth Rank Shows Success Of Malaysia's National Education System"?

(01st September 2010)

To: shyong@bernama.com Editor- in-Chief

Hi,

I refer to your report "Eighth Rank Shows Success Of Malaysia's National Education System"
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=525307

where you quoted Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi as saying "Malaysia's eighth world ranking in the field of education as listed by the Newsweek magazine".

A quick check at
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html
shows that Malaysia is ranked 36 on the education list.

Was there a typo?

Jason Kay
Melaka


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(04th September 2010)

To: General Manager BERNAMA , "Senior Manager, Centre for Excellence BERNAMA" , "Manager, Quality Management System (QMS)"

Cc: Letters@newsweek.com

Hello all,

I have yet to receive any response from Editor-in-Chief (shyong@bernama.com).
Would you kindly favour me with a reply to my query as contained in the "forwarded message" attached below?

Thank you.

Jason Kay
Malacca
http://jasonkaykl.blogspot.com/2010/09/was-there-typo-in-this-report-eighth.html


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(08th September 2010)

To: bhnews@bharian.com.my, news@nstp.com.my, info@sinchew-i.com, editor@thestar.com.my, fred@thesundaily.com, pengarang@utusan.com.my

Factual accuracy in Journalism

Hi all,

I am writing to you as editors of the main stream newspapers purely for some closure on this question: Factual accuracy is important for journalist, right?
I do not wish to point fingers or assign blame. I was merely hoping for a reply on what I consider an important factual error (which would impact the tenor of a story) that was not addressed.

The issue
The question which struck me upon reading this article

Eighth Rank Shows Success Of Malaysia's National Education System
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=525307

was, "Is Malaysia ranked no. 8 or no. 36?" since the Newsweek website says Malaysia is no. 36 for education

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/15/interactive-infographic-of-the-worlds-best-countries.html

I emailed Bernama twice

http://jasonkaykl.blogspot.com/2010/09/was-there-typo-in-this-report-eighth.html

but to date (08/09/2010 at 10.21am), there is no answer.

What I hope this email will achieve
I am merely hoping that one of you will be able to respond and tell me why this seemingly important factual error was not addressed, or pass this email to someone in Bernama who could give a response (I am not unaware that I probably may have sent my email to the wrong place, but I did get the email addresses from http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/email.php

Thank you for your time. I will publish any reply from you on my blog and facebook profile. I will not visit this issue anymore other than to say that I will know how to act accordingly in the future based on the response / non response I receive from this and my previous emails on the subject (again, I must stress, I am not out to point fingers, merely to highlight what to me is an important factual error - most probably inadvertent)

Jason Kay
Melaka