Lahad Datu conflict also known as “Sabah standoff” conflict, is unforgettable tragedies until killed about 10 of Malaysian security personnel and impacted economic, social and emotion of citizens especially at Lahad Datu, Sabah. The objective of this research is to examine the portrayal of solution from Malaysian Government for the “Lahad Datu Crisis” through newspaper framing in Malaysian mainstream newspapers namely Utusan Malaysia, The Star, Sin Chew and Nanban daily. The measurement for the crisis response will be measure through few independent variables such as category of “Lahad Datu” news; between problem, solution, people or neutral category. The following independent variable is through the slants of news; whether news is slanted in positive, negative or neutral slant. With the assistance of “Situational Crisis Communication Theory”, this research employed a systematic quantitative content analysis to gather the data. Finding revealed that, category of solution appeared most in Utusan Malaysia, The Star, Sin Chew and Nanban daily and news in positive slants were covered in all the selected dailies. In providing responses for the crisis, Justification and Concern crisis response portrayed most, however, through Kruskal Wallis test, data found that The Star and Utusan Malaysia portrayed most of the Justification and Concern responses compare to Sin Chew daily and Nanban daily.

This research was to examine the portrayal of crisis response strategies in Malaysian local vernacular printed dailies in covering terrorism crises which is the Lahad Datu crisis in Malaysia. The researcher relied on Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) and Framing theory to identify the news coverage and appropriate solutions through newspaper framing. Five variables were identified by the researcher in examining crisis response strategies such as news category, news slants, news framing, news sources and portrayal of visuals. Through quantitative content analysis, data revealed that the solution category was portrayed by Nanban daily, but Sin Chew focused on the problem category. For the news slants, Sin Chew daily framed negative slants of news most but Nanban daily portrayed issues in positive slants. In measuring the news frame, both dailies focused more on the attribution of responsibility frame. In examining the crisis response strategies, the researcher found, justification crisis response was portrayed predominantly but there is a significant difference between two different vernacular dailies in the portrayal of justification crisis response followed by concern crisis response. Kruskal Wallis’s test revealed that there is a significant difference in the portrayal of concern response between two dailies however, both newspapers having significant associations in portraying compensation crisis response.