Newspapers
Frustration grows
With readers complaining of reporting bias, some journalists are starting to question their editors about government control. By Seah Chiang Nee.
Sept 10, 2011

(Synopsis: About 60% of youths (aged 21-39) believe the Singapore media is biased and this has not helped to lift journalistic morale.)

RECENTLY a friend from abroad asked me at an Orchard Road cafe what I thought was the biggest cause of youths getting so upset with the government.

It was a Friday evening and the place was gradually filling up with young high-fashioned Singaporeans hitting the town for a weekend of fun.

Around us were outlets with names like Brotzeit German Bier Bar, Kamado Japanese Wood Fire, Flying Chillies and Trattoria Cuccina Italiana.

Bright lights, youthful laughter and rich food! People were tucking in food that cost what some workers earn in a whole month in Southeast Asia.

They were literate, multi-racial, young professionals or undergrads who were touting the latest tablet or some other hand-held gadget. These were Singapore’s new generation.

Where we sat was probably one of the world’s priciest properties on a per square foot basis.

The whole scene portrayed a high-spending, tech-savvy generation raised in an era of prosperity, which my friend found it hard to compare with the level of discontentment.

And as we pondered over the likely reasons, the Wikileaks story on media control in Singapore broke that gave us an inkling of a possible answer.

Senior Singapore journalists had reportedly told US diplomats of their rising frustrations over government pressure on newspapers to toe the line.

Overzealous ministers, the diplomatic cables alleged, often called up editors to ensure that a story came out in a way that they wanted.

Other points included the following:

** A divide has developed between the editors and the younger journalists in The Straits Times, and

** Reporters who had journalistic principles are seeking overseas postings (which involved less control) or overseas jobs.

A senior Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) staff member was quoted as saying that SPH editors were all hand-picked by the PAP government, and trained for years to toe the party line.

The revelation may or may not have been exaggerated but they did not shock older citizens who had lived with harsher times under Lee Kuan Yew. To the young, it was an eye-opener.

Last year Singapore’s Press Freedom Index dropped to a new low of 136th out of 187 countries from 133rd in 2009, according to Reporters Without Borders.

At the same time, half the Singaporeans polled by the Institute of Policy Studies felt “there is too much government control of newspapers and television”.

Younger readers (aged 21 to 39 years) who believed there was media bias totalled 60 per cent.

All these have not helped to lift journalistic morale given that the mainstream press is sometimes the second choice for the new generation.

“For today’s journalists, these are not happy times as they are caught between two forces – a highly-demanding political leadership and media readers who accuse them of playing up to the government.

For a decade, circulation of the flagship Straits Times – a virtual monopoly – has stagnated to around 380,000 copies a day despite an additional one million more residents.

To be sure, declining newspaper sales are not confined to this city but reflect a global trend.

Nevertheless, as the predominant English-language newspaper, The Straits Times (ST) remains a powerful – albeit declining – force in shaping public opinion.

It reaches a third of total households and is preferred by older citizens even as younger Singaporeans are increasingly turning to the computer for information.

In a dialogue session last year, editor Han Fook Kwang admitted that the paper suffered from a perception that it is a “government mouthpiece”.

As more Singaporeans become better educated, the clamour for a truly independent, fair and balanced press gets louder.

“How can we be a creative, vibrant city when the media is stifled and manipulated?” a blogger asked.

At any rate, with the advent of the Internet, the government could ultimately be the loser.

“You can’t pull time back to the past. If Singaporeans find the mainstream newspapers spouting government propaganda, they would just forget about it and turn to alternative media,” said an active surfer.

The Wikileaks accounts, however, have told half a story and failed to mention the gradual relaxation taking place since 1990 after Lee stepped down as Prime Minister.

At age 71, I have had the advantage of working in Singapore as a newspaper editor and a correspondent in the region for 51 years.

These are what someone said the nation’s best and worst of times.

I have watched the Republic evolve with each new generation.

And if you had interpreted the US diplomatic revelation as a journalistic dark hole, I can only say: “You haven’t really lived with government control yet!”

Like when AIDS reared its head in the 1980s and our newspaper, The Monitor, ran a campaign telling young people to refrain from unprotected sex.

“Don’t do it – but if you have to, use a condom!” I received a phone call from a government official expressing unhappiness accusing us of promoting permissiveness.

So how else should we have put across the prevention message? His reply: “You should have said, ‘No sex’, rather than advocated safe sex.”

“And how many young people do you think will listen to our ‘No sex’ appeal?” I shot back.

“That’s not our concern. We shouldn’t be advising people to use condoms; that’s encouraging promiscuity,” he replied, a fair effort to control the press with a view of protecting public values.

That was, of course, before Geylang’s sex industry arrived to make the debate redundant.

Today, the authorities could be quite joyful (officially, of course) if visitors there are armed with condoms. How times have changed!

(This was first published in The Star)