From the news article in today
AS A young journalist searching for answers to questions that many have pushed out of their minds, I should have been pleased to hear Dr Vivian Balakrishnan tell the media that one of its roles is to expose Government wrongdoings.
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"If there is something wrong in Singapore, if there is a problem, it must be reported. If a minister is corrupt or incompetent, he must be exposed ... I expect the press to whistleblow," the Second Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts said during a question-and-answer session at the Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA).
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It has been more than a week since those words were uttered. Yet, there is hardly a squeak in our media or among Singaporeans. No letters from readers have been published, no follow-up reports have appeared or been broadcast.
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This seeming lack of enthusiasm makes me wonder whether I should stop asking questions, stop looking deeper into those remarks and just get on with my work.
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Questions like: Was he announcing a significant shift in Government policy on media? Was it a
test rocket to see how Singaporeans react? Was it an off-the-cuff remark, because it was not in his speech, made in response to a question from the floor? Or was it a genuine desire for change by a man who, during his student days in London, wrote letters critical of the Singapore Government and who is likely to take over as minister in the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (Mica)?
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One of the biggest hurdles for the media wanting to expose wrongdoings in any area, let alone in Government,
is the absence of an investigative journalism culture in our newsrooms. Except for rare occasions, like when The Straits Times' education correspondent Sandra Davie, in 1989, brought to light the questionable practices of a religious group, The House of Israel, our media is generally very quiet on this front. Especially when its motto is very clearly enshrined in these three words: Inform, educate and entertain.
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Then, there is the question of resources that are needed if the media is to add the word "expose" to its role. With editors being forced to look at eyeballs and bottomlines, it will take a very brave one to ask for money to be pumped in to recruit investigative journalists, the results of whose work one might not see until months, even years, later.
With its reputation on the line, the newspaper's editors persisted with the coverage, unravelling more intrigue with each passing report, even though at times it appeared to be collapsing. And after 26 months of dogged reporting amid intense political and public pressure, the newspaper was vindicated with Mr Nixon's resignation.
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Is our media, with business high up on agenda, game for such a long-drawn battle to expose a politician?.
Read what the new editor in chief of the Singapore Press Holdings' (SPH) English and Malay Newspapers Division, Mr Patrick Daniel, had to tell Asian Newspaper Focus in an interview. He said one of the areas he wants to devote time to is the business side of things. It was very forthright of him to say that the work of an editor is not only about editorial content any more.
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Understandable, because the old media is facing challenges like readers having choices aplenty and advertisers mulling over cheaper and alternative platforms.
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Also, there is the argument that the People's Action Party Government is one of the least corrupt in the world. The rigorous way in which it goes about selecting and inducting people into government and investigating the occasional errant minister (remember Housing Minister Teh Cheang Wan who committed suicide in 1986 after the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau started probing him?) can be a powerful argument against the need for a shadow like the media.
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The libel and defamation laws are another thing. They are so strictly interpreted here that editors would prefer, in most cases, not to go to court. The recent high-profile National Kidney Foundation versus SPH case was something the newspaper had never wanted to proceed with in the first place — it was T T Durai who refused a settlement.
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Even if one discounts these hurdles, there is the Government's overarching media policy, articulated by Mr Lee Kuan Yew in the 1970s and repeated by the next two Prime Ministers. To break it down to its simplest denominator,
it makes it clear that the role of the media is not to be a watchdog of the government. Indeed, Dr Balakrishnan made this clear in his speech at the FCA too: "The Government will continue to set the political agenda and rules of engagement."
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With all these realities staring us so starkly in our faces, what to make of the minister's remark?
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The charitable view is that something is brewing. But the sceptic in me says:
Don't bet on a change in media policy.
