mild polemic
From the Air-Conditioned Nation (cherian.blogspot.com):
8. Critics who only attack the mainstream media are barking up the wrong tree. Most societies have examples of mainstream, pro-establishment media that are not sympathetic to radical or progressive forces. In other words, in many countries with a free press, you will find newspapers not very unlike The Straits Times and Today. The big difference is that in those societies, such newspapers are not given government-protected monopolies. There is media diversity, including small non-commercial, cause-driven media published for ideological reasons. For those interested in media reform, the real issue is the absence of such alternatives, which can only be addressed by reviewing the media licensing regime. As long as critics focus their fire almost exclusively on mainstream media instead of the regulatory structure, the press system will outlast them, and every criticism expressed in GE2006 will be repeated in GE2010 as it was in GE2001, GE1997, GE1991...
go see also Yawning Bread (yawningbread.org)
Cherian George makes the point alot more succinctly and incisively than i ever could. i post this here because i feel it is a point i need to make to certain government scholars around me. Whenever horror is expressed that i chose the SPH scholarship over a government one, or whenever people pull faces designed to show sympathy for the prospect of me having to serve a bond at a 'propaganda machine' like The Straits Times, i can't decide to get pissed off or to laugh.
Because you know nothing about what happens in the newsroom. You think you are superior and intelligent and would never read the *sniff* straits times. but you don't know the talent in the newsroom, or the battle that journalists and editors wage everyday to get the subtlest bit of controversial coverage or wording into the straits times against the dynasty of illiberalism that you have signed your life to. you think you can change things in the bureaucracy; that you can actually make a difference from within, and that journalism in singapore is a dead-end, not acknowledging that it is the bureacracy that makes journalism what it is in singapore. the straits times has the resources: both human and otherwise, to be an absolute first-class paper. it is the politics of mediocrity, not the impossibility of journalistic excellence, that makes it what it is.
and so, next time you sniff at how lopsided election coverage is, or how worthless a paper ST is, think about the wall of censorship that journalists here fight everyday (and to their enormous credit, mostly don't submit to); think about how press coverage has improved over the years despite the continuing intransigence of the government's media policy, and then think about who made the more foolish choice: you or me?
and like i said before, make no mistake: it is not the paper i am fleeing, it is the country. likewise, there is nothing sad about being a journalist in singapore, or even being proud that you are one; it is the unyielding climate of political control that is the tragedy.
8. Critics who only attack the mainstream media are barking up the wrong tree. Most societies have examples of mainstream, pro-establishment media that are not sympathetic to radical or progressive forces. In other words, in many countries with a free press, you will find newspapers not very unlike The Straits Times and Today. The big difference is that in those societies, such newspapers are not given government-protected monopolies. There is media diversity, including small non-commercial, cause-driven media published for ideological reasons. For those interested in media reform, the real issue is the absence of such alternatives, which can only be addressed by reviewing the media licensing regime. As long as critics focus their fire almost exclusively on mainstream media instead of the regulatory structure, the press system will outlast them, and every criticism expressed in GE2006 will be repeated in GE2010 as it was in GE2001, GE1997, GE1991...
go see also Yawning Bread (yawningbread.org)
Cherian George makes the point alot more succinctly and incisively than i ever could. i post this here because i feel it is a point i need to make to certain government scholars around me. Whenever horror is expressed that i chose the SPH scholarship over a government one, or whenever people pull faces designed to show sympathy for the prospect of me having to serve a bond at a 'propaganda machine' like The Straits Times, i can't decide to get pissed off or to laugh.
Because you know nothing about what happens in the newsroom. You think you are superior and intelligent and would never read the *sniff* straits times. but you don't know the talent in the newsroom, or the battle that journalists and editors wage everyday to get the subtlest bit of controversial coverage or wording into the straits times against the dynasty of illiberalism that you have signed your life to. you think you can change things in the bureaucracy; that you can actually make a difference from within, and that journalism in singapore is a dead-end, not acknowledging that it is the bureacracy that makes journalism what it is in singapore. the straits times has the resources: both human and otherwise, to be an absolute first-class paper. it is the politics of mediocrity, not the impossibility of journalistic excellence, that makes it what it is.
and so, next time you sniff at how lopsided election coverage is, or how worthless a paper ST is, think about the wall of censorship that journalists here fight everyday (and to their enormous credit, mostly don't submit to); think about how press coverage has improved over the years despite the continuing intransigence of the government's media policy, and then think about who made the more foolish choice: you or me?
and like i said before, make no mistake: it is not the paper i am fleeing, it is the country. likewise, there is nothing sad about being a journalist in singapore, or even being proud that you are one; it is the unyielding climate of political control that is the tragedy.
