Journalism in Singapore

Losing Faith of the Printed Word
I just spent the past hour and a half watching a BBC documentary on Tehran, and what struck me was the spirit of journalism, both of the BBC journalist and the journalists in Tehran. If Prof. Mahbubani said journalists have a tough job in Singapore, I suppose he was not speaking in terms relative to Iran. The Iranian journalists seem to display tenacity and passion I don't sense from reading the Straits Times. But I'm making an unfair comparison because those Iranian journalists featured didn't work for the equivalent of the ST - they work for smaller outfits that nonetheless have impressive circulation.

In the documentary, Rageh Omaar said that despite being news-obsessed, Iranians were "losing faith of the printed word." They browse newspapers but don't buy them. They have the fourth largest blogging community in the world, and Iranians are increasingly turning to Satellite TV and the Internet.

Foreigners tend to have an overly pessimistic impression of Iran - that it is a repressive regime when in fact there are many elements of democracy. The documentary makes me feel Singapore doesn't stand very far from where Iran is in terms of media freedom. We all have to paraphrase issues in euphemistic ways, and that is if we're allowed to talk openly about them. Bloggers are ok, so long as they do not attract too much attention. The "red lines" or "OB markers" are too broad to be useful - we are allowed to say what we want as long as we know how to dance around land mines.

An Iranian film had to be censored extensively before it could be screened locally, but went on to win at International Film Festivals - sounds familiar to Singapore? Journalists, documentary makers, filmmakers, visual artists have a central part in our world, because they communicate to us and remind us what we should be doing to progress our world.

Perhaps the reason why Holland Village Voice started out as a novel modeled after Kundera's is because I deeply feel and fear that media freedom in Singapore is an illusion. I felt compelled to speak in riddles, as Kundera did.

The old (circa May 2006 elections) post below was my attempt at writing about a character who censors the Singapore media in his own way.

The Sound of Silence
[Fiction]
The living room sounded silent as Tina turned her key, so she was surprised to see her Pa sitting in front of the TV (he had muted the news because the Progress Democratic Party was on). Her Pa had declared a cold war on her ever since the campaigning started. She sighed, but felt amused her Pa was exercising his censorship over the PDP. A refreshing change from work, perhaps.

Pa had sustained an unforgettable memory of loss. His mother tongue (Hokkien), and his university were both systematically eliminated. He was a radical Chinese educated. Today he speaks Singlish proudly, as if never wanting to let go of the vestige of his identity.

"There is no Singaporean language," sends Tina through her MSN window. She has always been irked by her boyfriend's accent and consistently incorrect grammar, but she was exhausted from work, and in no mood to fight.

She wished she was back in the Village, shopping for trail mix or thumbing a discounted Murakami she was musing whether to buy or finish reading. Snapping out of the irrational wish, she turned on the TV in her own room so she can watch the PDP broadcast sans censorship. Somehow, her finger yearned for the mute button.