THE TEMASEK REVIEW

OPINION

In a developed nation where the press is relatively free of government control, journalists are not obliged to serve the interests of the country’s leaders.

As such, news are reported fairly accurately without the usual spins and propaganda to mislead the public.

Furthermore, with a diversity of views from various sources, readers are able to read and differentiate themselves the truth from the myths.

In Singapore, the media is entirely controlled by the ruling party via a single media company – SPH, which is headed by a former PAP minister Dr Tony Tan.

Being the sole media company in Singapore with no competitors, it is able to churn out one-sided, biased and inaccurate news reports heavily skewed in favor of the government daily without the fear of losing its readership.

After all, what other alternatives do Singapore have to read about local news. The foreign press is largely muzzled and not permitted to report on Singapore’s “internal affairs”.

Below are five common methods employed by SPH journalists to make Singapore leaders appear much better than they should be in the eyes of the public:

1. Censorship:

The easiest and most direct way to do so is to censor negative news about the government completely so that Singaporeans are kept ignorant of the extent of the mistakes made by their leaders.

It was reported in the Wall Street Journal that Singapore’s largest sovereign wealth fund, GIC lost an estimated sum of $100 million dollars in the last two years, but it was not even warranted a mention in the state-controlled media.

Similarly, the media was full of praise of Temasek CEO Ho Ching for earning a few million dollars on paper, but failed to highlight her disastrous investment decisions such as buying the shares of Barclays bank at a high and selling them at a low a few months later.

2. Glorifying minor achievements and successes:

If the media keeps singing the praises of Singapore leaders daily, it is only expected that Singaporeans who grow up reading the Singapore papers are led to believe that they are the best in the world.

Every single success and achievement of the ruling party and its leaders are trumpeted and blown out of proportion in the state media even when they don’t really deserve the credit at all.

The Straits Times credited the Singapore Internal Security Department for providing the crucial “intelligence” which led to the capture of escaped terrorist Mas Selamat Kasteri by the Malaysian Special Branch.

This was denied almost immediately by the Malaysian Home Affairs Minister the very next day. It turned out that the operation was part of a joint collaboration by the Malaysian, Singapore and Indonesian police.

The Singapore ISD actually played only a minor role in the capture of Mas Selamat, but the Straits Times did not publish the Malaysian side of the story to give the public the full picture and Singaporeans end up believing that ISD had indeed “redeemed” itself.

3. Downplaying mistakes:

It is only human to err, but in the eyes of the Singapore media, the PAP leaders are demigods who are incapable of making even the slightest mistakes.

Even if mistakes are made, they will be downplayed and trivialized such that they appear not to matter at all.

The severity of the medication blunder at KKH was repeatedly downplayed by the state media.

One of the victims who received an overdose of doxorubicin was deemed not to be in a “serious” condition because the medication can be given as a bolus dose over 6 minutes.

The two patients were reported to be “recuperating” well though one of them is still not out of the danger yet.

4. Shifting the blame:

The Singapore media is most adept at playing the blame game to deflect public criticisms of the administration to somebody or somewhere else.

The escape of limping terrorist Mas Selamat Kasteri was blamed on Singaporeans for being “complacent”.

The mass food poisoning outbreak at Geylang Serai temporary market was caused by “poor” public hygiene practices of Singaporeans.

First time home buyers are not able to get a HDB flat of their choice because they are too “fussy”.

The medication error at KKH occurred because the a design fault in the pumps.

The flooding at Bukit Timah was inevitable because it is a “freak” event which happens once in 50 years.

No matter what mistake they made, Singapore ministers will never be held accountable for them. 

As such, they don’t see any need to apologize to the public since their mistakes are never acknowledged in the first place.

5. Damage control:

If the screw-up is too glaring to be ignored, the state media will quickly feed the public with reports on what the PAP leaders are doing to rectify the fault.

3 days after the Bukit Timah flooding, the Straits Times carried a full-page article of PAP MP Christopher de Souza visiting the affected residents and promising them that the drainage canals will be expanded next year.

There was no mention of the fact that a similar flood had occurred in Thomson area in 2006 and Minister Yaacob had five entire years to enlarge the drains, but failed to do so and attributed the flooding conveniently to a “freak” event.

HDB had initially insisted that there are sufficient flats to go around for Singaporeans, but following rising resentment on the ground, it announced that it will be increasing the supply of flats in the next few years.

The state media chose to ignore HDB’s oversight in not building more new flats in the years 2006 – 2008 when the inflow of foreigners is at the peak leading to the housing crunch and sky-rocketing prices now.

The Singapore media is doing both the people and the government a great disservice by its selective and deceptive brand of journalism.

The people are misled into voting for an over-rated government at the expense of nurturing a credible opposition and alternative in Singapore.

The PAP ministers are molly-coddled by a compliant and submissive media into complacency when they should be having their intellect and communication skills challenged constantly by sharp questions from journalists.

The end result is that we hear them making the most insensitive, callous and ridiculous remarks such as Mr Yaacob’s “freak event”, Charles Chong’s “lesser mortal” and Goh Chok Tong’s “honest mistake”.

In the long run, Singapore will be poorer for it without a robust, independent and free media to check on the excesses of the government.

As the “fourth estate” of the state, the media can act as an influential bulwark against potential corruption and abuses of power by the executive, more so than high salaries.

In the United Kingdom, the dishonest and frivolous claims made by the British MPs would never be exposed if not for the media.

The Singapore government should consider liberalizing the media to give it more leeway to report on socio-political issues of the day and set up an official news agency like Malaysia’s Bernama instead to convey its plans and policies to the people.

Right now, the major dailies are sounding more and more like government mouthpieces than newspapers proper which casts serious doubts on their credibility.

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