News portal The Malaysian Insight suspends publication, cites financial reasons

(Today Online) – Malaysian news portal The Malaysian Insight (TMI) will stop publication from next week onwards due to financial reasons, its editor and chief executive Jahabar Sadiq said on Friday (March 23).

In the note to TMI’s readers, Mr Jahabar said the year-old news website’s publications suspension is due to its missing of a “major milestone in starting a paywall” and as page views traffic has not reached the targeted critical mass.

“Hence, we need to review our direction, news operations and commercial viability.

“The decision to suspend publication in the interim is a difficult one, but was made due to the challenging financial environment faced by The Malaysian Insight and other media outlets,” he said in the statement published on TMI on Friday evening.

“The Malaysian Insight thanks it’s readers and journalists and staff working here since its inception on March 31, 2017,” he said.

Last month, Malaysian tycoon Robert Kuok has had to deny that he was funding the news portal after allegations were made against him by pro-government blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin.

In a series of articles on the Malaysia Today website, Mr Raja Petra had accused Mr Kuok of financing The Malaysian Insight news portal, of attempting to engineer the removal of the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government, and of seeking to install a Chinese government in Malaysia.