Don't take sweets from Kuan Yew
Mark Disney
Malaysiakini
19 Oct 07
Congratulations to Malaysiakini on being mentioned approvingly by
Singapore's Senior Mentor/Brother No 1, Lee Kuan Yew. But beware
the kiss of death.
Soliciting advice from Mr Lee on the topic of media credibility is
like asking Genghis Khan for his guidance on diplomacy. It's like
being praised by Donald Trump for good taste and modesty.
Lee's sheer chutzpah in thinking that he has anything meaningful to
offer on the subject (and I say this as one of his admirers) is
stunning. His grudging approval of Net-based news, however welcome,
is undermined when he claims that the standards of journalistic
propriety are set by the big boys in the United States: "But if you
say, this is the New York Times, this is the Washington Post or the
LA Times, then you say, well, that is the standard." If that's the
standard, then God help us all.
Can he really be unaware that the big media networks in the US are
owned and controlled by huge corporations, many of them, like
Westinghouse and General Electric, arms manufacturers that are to
all intents and purposes the private arms (pun intended) of
government?
Does he think that western journalists really report in an
independent and honest fashion? Is he really in the dark about how
these media businesses served as cheerleaders for an invasion of
Iraq based on excuses that would have shamed a child? Has he never
heard of Jason Blair, Judith Miller, Armstrong Williams or Maggie
Gallagher, to name but a tiny fraction of what passes for honest
reporting in the US over the past two or three years?
I appreciate that Lee is a fan of the US - given Singapore's
unspoken status as the Israel of Southeast Asia, this is hardly
surprising - but these newspapers have about as much credibility as
his own Straits Times when it comes to promoting a non-government
approved view of the world. If it were not the case that the media
performs a significant propaganda function, how does one explain
the huge percentages of US citizens who still believe, as one of
many possible examples, that Saddam ordered 9/11?
Of course, one of the more enduring conspiracies, particularly
strong in America, is the notion that the mainstream media has a
liberal bias. This only makes sense if we assume that the honest,
authoritative and objective norm lies somewhere on the political
spectrum between Dick Cheney and Rupert Murdoch. If everyone to the
left of these gentlemen is 'liberal' then 95% of the world's
population must be card-carrying 'lefties'.
It was interesting that Lee repeated the idea that 'filtering' news
is important to weed out the rubbish. Perhaps he's been reading
Chomsky and Hermann, although I doubt it. As many of your readers
will be aware, this model postulates five general classes of
"filters" that determine the type of news deemed officially
acceptable. These are: (1) ownership of the medium, (2) funding
sources, (3) sourcing of information, (4) flak, and (5) an
anti-communist ideology. The model obviously fits Singapore and
Malaysia but it is equally applicable, though slightly less
glaringly, to the US or the UK.
None of us is wholly innocent. To cover myself from (legitimate)
accusations of hypocrisy, I ought to declare that I'm in the
business of publishing magazines, which depend on advertising
revenue. Would I go out of my way to bite the hands that feed?
Obviously not. And nor would any mainstream media anywhere in the
world.
Lee goes on to say that for the print media to stay in the contest
with online news, they should not aim "to be the first with the
news because that's not possible, but to be the first with the
background and the analysis and the ones with the high credibility
will stay in business." This again is nonsense. One reads the
mainstream papers or watches the 24-hour channels to get the latest
news (breaking stories, football scores, weather, share market
updates).
If it's honest, intelligent or independent analysis you're
after, you have no option but to reach for the mouse.
Obviously, a certain amount of intelligence, knowledge and
discretion is required to sift the wheat from the chaff but the
Internet is swarming with informed debate - unlike mainstream
journalism.
Malaysians and Singaporeans know this, and it is the real reason
for the success of independent online news portals and blogs.
http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articlefreespeech6.html