I am not sure if sgforums allowed this article to be posted.
If you have the conscience for the Singaporeans,
please do not remove or close this topic. All
Singaporeans have the right to know what is going on.
By Jeffrey
Oon | SingaporeScene
WikiLeaks has released a cable report on 'Journalists frustrated by
press controls' in Singapore. (Screengrab …
A senior staff
member of Singapore's largest newspaper admits there's "significant
pressure" on its editors to follow the government line, according
to a newly-released
WikiLeaks document.
As a result,
reporters within the paper are "increasingly frustrated" with the
restrictions on what they can report and often seek overseas
postings where restrictions are fewer.
The document,
which appears to be written minutes taken in 2009 at the Singapore
Embassy, highlighted the private views of two Straits Times
journalists and a then-journalism student.
Chua Chin Hon, who
is currently the paper's US bureau chief, was quoted as saying that
reporters have to be careful in their coverage of local news, as
Singapore's leaders will "likely come down hard" on anyone who
reports negatively about the government or its leadership.
Without naming
names, he also recounted how several ministers at the time
"routinely call editors" to ensure that media coverage of an issue
"comes out the way they want it."
Chua also said
that ST editors had been vetted to ensure their "pro-government
leanings" and that while local reporters are "eager to produce more
investigative and critical reporting... they are stifled by editors
who have been groomed to tow the line."
In the WikiLeaks
cable, Chua pointed out how there is extensive media coverage
before the government intends to push out a certain policy, adding
that some articles read like "Public Service Announcements".
He cited how
during the 2008 collapse of Lehman brothers, there was a spate of
articles writing about the retirees who lost money in the
mini-bonds in a sympathetic manner, and this was followed by the
government's decision to assist those retirees.
Singapore's largest newspaper has often been criticised
for its pro-government stance. (Yahoo! photo)
Another reporter,
Lynn Lee, who is currently the paper's Indonesian bureau chief,
confirmed the restrictions on local media, highlighting the
internal editorial debate over the covering of the opposition in
Singapore.
An example she
gave was the conflict over the amount of coverage that the paper
would dedicate to opposition icon J.B. Jeyaretnam (JBJ) following
his death in September 2008, saying that while editors agreed with
reporters' demand for extensive coverage of his funeral, they
rejected reporters' suggestions to limit the amount of coverage
devoted to eulogies provided by Singapore's leaders.
In the end, the
leaders' statements took up a significant portion of the allotted
space, Lee said.
In addition, Lee
revealed that self-censorship was a common practice for
reporters.
She said that she
would never write about any racially sensitive issues, citing the
case of a journalist in Malaysia who was arrested for reprinting a
politician's racially charged comments.
In contrast to the
limitations imposed on local reports, Chua said that the paper's
reporters are more free to write about international events. Chua
said he enjoyed a great deal of freedom during his stint as China
Bureau Chief.
The leaked cable
also contained the views of then-journalism student Chong Zi Liang,
who said he could see himself working locally for one or two years
before going off somewhere else, because he thought it was too
"stifling" to remain in the country.
The document is
part of a collection of 251,000 unedited and confidential US
diplomatic cables that can be found on the whistle-blowing
WikiLeaks website, founded by Julian Assange.
In the latest
batch released online, several more can be found about
Singapore.
One talks about
the state
of Singapore's opposition in 2004 and another on how the
government actively co-opts talented
Muslims to become Members of Parliament.
Last year,
WikiLeaks revealed what key Singapore diplomats thought of
neighbouring Asian leaders as well as what former leader Lee Kuan
Yew thinks about North Korea.
Former Today chief editor P N Balji, who has
spent 35 years in Singapore journalism and is now a media
consultant, said the leaks "tell an old story", and there is a need
now to study how the old media is trying to meet the challenges of
the new media.
"There is enough
evidence to show how the old media is forced to come out of
its comfort zone and publish stories which broke in the online
world. Something we never saw, say five years ago," he said.
"A new
relationship is developing between the government and
media. The biggest loser, if The Straits
Times continues to lose eyeballs, is the government. Then
it will be without a pervasive platform to get across its
message," he pointed out.
"How this
relationship will play out will depend a lot on whether editors can
make the big switch to the new normal in Singapore journalism and
how the government will respond to such efforts," he added.
