What
the papers say
ASIAWEEK March 24, 2000
BY ROGER MITTON Singapore.
The
press has a regional voice. But is it mute on some local topics?
SINGAPORE'S English-language press is the most
informative in Southeast Asia. None of the papers in neighboring countries
compares with the Straits Times or the Business Times for
the breadth and incisiveness of their coverage. Says Eddie Kuo, dean of
Communication Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University:
"Newspapers here are a lot more international and cosmopolitan in
content. They are strong on regional affairs and have reasonable coverage
of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. So for that range, they are doing a good
job."
The main reason is advertising revenue. Singapore Press Holdings controls all the newspapers. So if you have a business to promote, a flat to let or a vacancy to fill, there is basically only one place to take your ad and your money. Notes the Straits Times editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng: "We benefit from a healthy economy, which enables us to build up our financial muscle." No other regional media can match the group's foreign bureaus. The Straits Times (circulation almost 400,000) has staff correspondents across the region, plus Washington, and will soon station one in California to cover the Internet revolution. As a result, it carries first-hand reports - not the lookalike wire stories that clog many of the region's other papers.
However, the Singapore press is criticized for its coverage of local politics. To accusations that newspapers are slavishly pro-government, Cheong replies:"There is this perception that we are so handcuffed that we cannot do a professional job. But look at our domestic coverage and decide whether or not we have been hiding vital information. Have we banished diversity of opinion on domestic politics?" Former journalist turned media guru Ravi Veloo disagrees: "Yes, there is press freedom in Singapore - freedom to publish sex and crime stories. Unfortunately, it doesn't extend to local politics." Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has warned he will not tolerate unbridled investigative journalism. "Watchdog, meaning that they can investigate every matter, espousing views and setting their own agenda, I would not agree with that," he says. Many Singapore journalists have in the past been detained and questioned by the Special Branch security police. Says Veloo: "My impression is that one phone call can mean the end of a journalist's career."
In cases of perceived national interest, papers routinely fall in line behind the Singapore side. A steady drumbeat of jingoism accompanied Singapore Telecom's recent bid for Hong Kong's Cable & Wireless HKT. When the Singaporeans were outmaneuvered by Hong Kong upstart Richard Li, the tang of sour grapes lingered in the air for days. "SingTel could get the last laugh," said one report in the Straits Times, suggesting that a possible deal with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was a better option anyway.
But times are changing for Singapore. So will its media be opened up to international players in the way the banking and telecommunications sectors have been liberalized, or in the way Hong Kong's South China Morning Post is owned by Malaysian businessman Robert Kuok Hock Nien? No, says Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo. He contends: "For domestic media principally concerned with Singaporean affairs, we must not cede control to foreigners because it may be manipulated for their own purposes, without our knowing."
Still, media expansion is on the way. Coming soon from Singapore Press Holdings: Eyeball - an upmarket tabloid, very trendy, highly dotcom and perfectly benign toward the government. Says Cheong: "The media scene in Singapore is going to be a hell of a lot livelier. With new technology, media choices are going to proliferate to an extent that was never possible before." Veloo smiles: "I don't think any of this will lead to greater press freedom. The government will not allow any challenge to its authority from the press."