Well, this is news — even if there’s no actual news involved.
A press conference on the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 scheduled to be held mere minutes ago at the headquarters of the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) was abruptly called off at the very last minute, due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
DCA communications officer Jagjit Singh was tasked with the unenviable announcement, which was made to a hall packed with local and international news media, and family members of those on board the missing aircraft.
Even had the press conference went ahead as scheduled, no press questions would have been allowed. Only written questions submitted by e-mail would have been answered, and only by tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.
Members of the media were told that they would be informed of a new date and time for the next press conference via e-mail.
Flight MH370 disappeared off the radar in the early hours of March 8 last year, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. There were 239 people on board the plane.
The aircraft was declared lost at sea somewhere in the South Indian Ocean by Prime Minister Najib Razak on March 24.
