From the online chatter, it's clear that querulous Singaporeans view the mainstream media as hopelessly pro-government, and journalists as deserving of nothing but contempt for their performance. While opposition coverage this time was greater and fairer than before, audience expectations have also risen. The truth is, the mainstream media can never catch up with the expectations of more questioning Singaporeans. Singapore's press system ensures this. As government leaders assert repeatedly, the media aren't supposed to set the national agenda, because that's the role of an elected government. Therefore, don't expect the mass media to be at the vanguard of change. They are meant to reflect the broad middle ground and its mainstream values. And there's no doubt that the majority of Singaporeans (we can quibble about just how big or small a majority it is, but it's the majority nonetheless) favour continued PAP rule. (So does the stock market, apparently.)

It's not just political control that makes the press support the status quo. Readers want the press to be 'objective'.

Well, in essence, the principle of objectivity tells journalists to report the world as it is, not as they think it should be. Financially, too, it makes sense for commercial media to identify most closely with the middle bulge of readers and viewers, rather than with the minorities at either end of the political or values spectrum.

All in all, it's not surprising that the mainstream media reflect PAP dominance, rather than challenge it. In this regard, the press is not unique. Every major institution and profession in Singapore is organically linked to the status quo. Academics, lawyers, artists, stockbrokers, businessmen - they within Singapore as it is, even if this is not quite Singapore as some think it ought to be.

I haven't met a stockbroker who would recommend dumping Singapore stock, including Singapore Press Holdings stock, to make a political point. Like journalists, stockbrokers' professional judgments are based on current conditions, rather than some hypothetical market of the distant future. (And if you think that stockbrokers don't count because finance has no 'political' implications, go read Marx.)

Don't shoot the messenger

The main reason journalists get more stick is that their work is more visible. Another reason is the lack of choice. Singapore's licensing system precludes more radically alternative options.

But that's a situation outside of the media's control. We journalists can only take the press system as a given, and work within it. Knowing all this doesn't make the job any easier. Indeed, if you have no ties to Singapore, it is entirely rational to avoid practising political journalism here.

It is just too difficult.

However, if you are a Singaporean with a love and respect for the written word, insatiable curiosity, a questioning mind and a sense of duty, the answer is equally clear: journalism in Singapore is a challenge, but still meaningful.

And your fellow citizens are better served by you stepping into the profession, rather than staying out.

Of course, if the PAP mismanages the press and crushes the profession, the only journalists who'll remain are the unthinking and unethical - stupid or self-serving sycophants. This is not yet the case. For now, individual journalists can still serve themselves, their professions, their employers and their society best by striving to be better journalists - more hardworking, more in-touch, more analytical.

Seasoned professionals know that elections always bring out liberals' frustration with the press, like at no other time.

It is also around election time that government leaders suspect the press to be full of pro-opposition, Fourth-Estate, Fifth-Column types. Why else, some in the PAP must wonder, would there be anything other than adulation in newspaper pages for a government so eminently good for the country? The PAP, just like liberals, has its own ideas of how things should be, differing from how things actually are. Faced with that contradiction, the intellectually laziest response will always be to shoot the messenger.

Sometimes, journalists deserve it, and can learn from it. But journalists who know they've done their best need not take it personally, and those who intend to enter the profession need not be put off.

Take it philosophically, as part of the Singapore condition - the national dilemma of how to reconcile the benefits of a dominant party system with the desire for more checks and balances. PAP dominance: can't live with it, can't live without it.

------------------------------------------------------------------ The writer is deputy head of journalism and publishing at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. This article is adapted from his blog, at cherian.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------------------------
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