Last night, I had a dream. My friend Wang Chee Hong (not his real name) asks me for a loan to help him expand his small business. I agree and prepare to transfer the money. Then, I see him shopping for a car with his mistress. I realise that the money I am going to lend him is not going to expand his business but his harem. I decide not to transfer the money. He gets upset.
“I thought I was going to lend you money to expand your business.” I say.
“Yes, that’s why I’m courting Lucy, but first, she needs a car. My reason for borrowing your money has not changed.”
Of course, it was just a dream. I have already unfriended such shameless people in real life. If only it’s so easy to change leaders when 60% of the country doesn’t agree with you.
It’s difficult to disagree with the Singapore government when you don’t have all the numbers and they can POFMA you at will. You can’t win. But what if their own numbers that have been used to substantiate some new policy have been cooked up? The policy still goes through. You still can’t win. Why? Because you’ve signed a blank cheque and I’m neither rich nor stupid enough to lend money to people who claim that they are starting a new business.
I’m talking about the Government’s commitment to fund SMT by up to $900 million over five years.
Let’s recap. Last year, Communications and Information Minister S. Iswaran heaped praises on our local media, especially our struggling newsPAPers. He tries to justify some form of state-sponsored framework for our highly privileged (compared to alternative media) and compliant newsPAPers. I’ve extracted a couple of salient points.
… The local news media fulfil this role while upholding high standards of accuracy, objectivity and balance. These are traits that are ever more scarce in the raucous global information landscape, especially online. The local media help to distinguish fact from falsehood, substance from posture, “what is high from what is low”, as Mr Lee Kuan Yew put it in 1998. …
…Without a responsible and high-quality local media, the quality of our public debate and discourse will be compromised, and we will slowly but inexorably become less cohesive as a society. Given what is at stake, the Government must take a long-term view, and adopt measures to secure the sustainability of our local media. The Government therefore carefully studied the proposal from SPH. SPH proposes to restructure and transfer the ownership of its media business to a company limited by guarantee...
We all know the dangers of signing a blank cheque. Or do we? Minister for Communications and Information Josephine Teo responded to 26 questions filed by MPs over an internal review finding circulation figures for some of its publications had been overstated by about 85,000 to 95,000 daily average copies. The review covered data between September 2020 and March 2022.
One would reasonably expect caution or even a rethink upon the discovery of such a scandal. If someone or some organisation were found guilty of fraudulent practices, you’ll need to rethink the deals you made with them before the discovery of fraud. However, Ms Teo insists that there is no change in the Government’s commitment to fund SMT by up to $900 million over five years. The level of funding – to support SMT in digital transformation and capability development, and to sustain vernacular newsrooms – remains valid, she told the House, as there is a need to preserve local news media in the public interest amid severe disruption in the industry.
Yao mo gao chor ah? Before the discovery of fraud, we might still find Mr Iswaran’s and Ms Teo’s claims about the SPH difficult to argue against. But now, we know for sure that the folks running our newsPAPers have been guilty of generating fake numbers. And by the way, I wonder if the folks who exposed them got a promotion for this tremendous act of public service. The reasons for funding our newsPAPers may not have changed (making sure that citizens are “united and cohesive”) but we can all see now that the most privileged and duty-bound purveyors of the news on this island are not as honest and reliable as our ministers espoused.
I’ve not read newsPAPers for over 20 years now (which may explain why I’m not into “cohesion”), but think of the hordes of believers who treat what the newsPAPers say as gospel truth. Well, actually no. What’s the big deal? Pastors who have been jailed for dishonest practices can still preach on video saying that the moment one believes in Jesus and confess that Jesus is Lord, he will be saved. Instantly, God declared the guilty person righteous.
I’m not sure if the newsPAPer folks who have misled our ministers went through a similar cleansing ritual, but such videos get many times more views and likes than all my videos put together.
Interestingly, regardless of any secular or religious cleansing ritual being involved for the hitherto unnamed fraudsters, not that many people are disappointed with this outcome. Why are the biggest victims – the advertisers not taking legal action? As I’ve guessed in an earlier post, it’s probably because they are afraid of being blacklisted by all mainstream media which come under the same organisation. The wonders of being the one and only.
Having said all that, preachers and leaders are expected to do everything within their power to maintain public support so as to sustain their popularity or authority. The sad thing is, we still have a voting system and it’s really the fault of the people if they don’t stop to question and decide for themselves what is right and what needs to be questioned and answered. At the end of the day, a voting system is useless if people keep signing blank cheques with their eyes closed so they can quickly go back to the daily grind at the hamster wheel to continue servicing their car and housing loans. That’s what life in Singapore is all about, isn’t it? $900 million? How many plates of char kway teow would that be for every one of us? Can’t hurt, right? Who cares about principles? Who cares if our newsPAPers remain newsPAPers?
New Book!
