The title of this article is very apt, considering the topic. It
is indeed a disgrace, that for a country that likes to revel in its
status as a First World country, Singapore is ranked 144 out of 165
countries in Press Freedom. We're right up there behind Robert
Mugabe's Zimbawe (141), Islamic theocracy Sudan (142) while our
nearest neighbours are 30-40 places above us. Another, truly world
class achievement by our country.
Or does this ranking make certain people proud? No prizes for
guessing who.
-------------------------------------------
Reporters with
borders
Asia Times
December 10, 2003
Singapore
By Roxanne Toh
SINGAPORE has been loosening controls over a range of activities -
from legalizing bungee jumping to bar-top dancing and the
employment of homosexuals - but recent statements by officials' are
a reminder that more media freedom is slow in coming.
Over the past few months, discussions relating to the role of local
and foreign media as well as Singapore's ambitions for becoming a
"global media city" show that the city-state remains very cautious
about easing up when it comes to the press.
While it wants to become a hub
for international and regional media, it is also wary about
negative - and in its view unconstructive - coverage of and comment
on Singapore.
In November, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts
(MITA) Lee Boon Yang was quoted as saying that local journalists
need to remain firm in serving the national interest and "to
attract more international media".
But at the same time, he issued warnings to foreign journalists
that the local media should not be used to amplify their ideas of
government and media policies.
Lee made his comments in the wake of a controversy over an article
that the free-circulating daily newspaper Today had published in
October, written by Australian expert in Asian corporate practice
Michael Backman, who, Lee said, had "crossed [the] line".
In his commentary "Is Singapore paranoid?", Backman said Singapore
still maintains "the old-fashioned, outmoded trappings of a Third
World dictatorship" - yet it does not have anything to hide.
He also argued that the country needs to cultivate the "freedom to
be wrong", which in his opinion is parallel to media freedom.
Bar-top dancing is just "sleaze", not reform or liberalism, Backman
concluded.
Critics find officials' approach to Backman's arguments - and their
objections to the fact that a local paper ran his views -
contradictory to what the Remaking Singapore Committee (RSC), aimed
at pushing a more open society and at addressing economic woes, had
set out to do when it was established in February 2002.
In its July 2003 report to the government, the committee mentioned
that "the relationship between government and the people should not
be viewed as a zero-sum game", and that the three qualities that
had helped Singapore progress rapidly include "decisive government
action, close people-government partnership and open communication
channels".
But if a "remade" Singapore shall "embrace a diversity of peoples
and ideas", skeptics wonder why foreign journalists, who can
contribute to "the development of our governance and political
maturity", are excluded, as Joseph Wong Kok Sen wrote in a November
19 letter to the Straits Times newspaper.
On the same day that Lee made his remarks, Senior Minister Lee Kuan
Yew defined television as a tool of guidance that, if it loses
credibility, will fail to serve its purpose.
He added that the local market is too small to support two
companies that run several television stations - Mediacorp and
Singapore Press Holdings' Mediaworks - in remarks interpreted as
discouraging more media variety and choices in the country. His
remarks were a "subtle warning" that one of these two key media
companies bring its shutters down, claimed an anonymous member of
the volunteer group Singapore Internet Community (Sintercom)
Forum.
"I was disappointed to hear the government concluded that the
market is too small, because that's far from clear," said Cherian
George, author of the book Singapore: The Air-Conditioned Nation,
The Media and New Politics.
"Just because the two dominant players in the Singapore media
haven't found the way to operate all their businesses profitably,
it doesn't necessarily mean others can't make it," continued
George, a postdoctoral fellow at the National University of
Singapore's Asia Research Institute.
"They are assuming that these two dominant players have exhausted
the potential of the Singapore market," he added.
Yet Lee Boon Yang's remarks came as no surprise to Sinapan
Samydorai of Think Center, a non-governmental group trying to push
discussion of politics and human rights in a society that frowns on
open dissent. It is "not [a] new pattern," he said.
According to ThinkCentre.org, Think Center's Internet portal,
Singapore is ranked 144th this year in the Second World Press
Freedom Ranking by the Paris-based non-governmental group Reporters
Without Borders. There are 165 other countries in the ranking. The
United States holds the 31st position and North Korea the
last.
At a Radio Singapore International talk show in October, Mark
Cenite, assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University's
School of Communication and Information, said the challenges to
media in Singapore are different from those of other
countries.
"If you talk to these folks ... what you find is they describe a
climate of some fear. I mean, nothing comparable to the situation
you have in some countries on the list where reporters face
violence as reprisals for stories," he explained. "But reporters here do describe a situation
where they are walking on eggshells."
Some foreign news agencies have regional offices in Singapore, but
the government tends not to look too much at news meant for
circulation outside of the country. However, in the past, the
government has stopped circulation of magazines it deemed to carry
unsuitable material.
Singaporean laws require agencies to possess permits in order to
publish newspapers. The Newspaper
and Printing Presses Act of 1974 also requires permission for the
distribution, importation and sale of "any offshore newspaper" in
Singapore.
Often, however, George says this "principle" is used against
individuals, as in the recent furor over Backman's comments in
Today, a publication owned by Mediacorp.
"He wasn't writing in an offshore publication but in a Singaporean
newspaper, with a Singapore license to publish. It raises questions
- most obviously, what is the role of editorial judgment in
publishing such pieces?" challenged George.
Some say it is time a country that has progressed so much since its
inception in 1959 became more confident and let its people speak
out and decide for themselves.
Jack Sai, a final year mass communication student at Ngee Ann
Polytechnic, cites as an example the public debate involving
officials, academics and sex workers in Thailand on legalizing
prostitution.
"Such issues need to be discussed very honestly because they affect
the country's economy and morality, which are cornerstones of a
nation. Bungee jumping and bar-top dancing are merely associated
with fun," he said in an interview.
"The fact that the [Thai] government treasured the opinions of even
the prostitutes themselves goes a long way in showing that everyone
is important, and all should be given a chance to speak," he
added.
Dharmendra Yadav wrote in a
letter to MITA, a university and newspapers that Lee Boon Yang's
remarks are a "mockery" of Singapore's education system, and the
ability of its citizens to think about what they
read.
"Surely, after more than 10 years of sound but competitive
education, the reasonable individual can be expected to separate
news from comment," he said. "Readers, listeners and viewers are
today far more discerning than those of the past."
