Problem Facing the Straits Times Forum

Recent posts on Coffee & Cigarettes and Yawning Bread touch on, among other issues, the standards applied by the Straits Times Forum Editor. The triggers were 1. A letter by Mr Heng about "Old people have the social and moral obligation to take care of themselves." 2. Prof. Kishore Mahbubani speech at MediaCorp News Awards about "Singapore Journalists Have a Difficult Job."

Issue has been around
The issue of the ST Forum selection criteria has definitely been around for a while. I vaguely remember an old website called "Not the Straits Times Forum" that published rejected letters, and recently we've seen a new project "Straight Times Forum" that attempts to achieve the same.

On this archived tomorrow.sg page, you will find a blurb highlighting a November 2005 analysis carried out by lzydata on his blog Singapore Ink about the breakdown of ST Forum letters. It was pretty obvious how warped the selection criteria was. Unfortunately, Singapore Ink is neither active nor archived.

In May 2005, I had a brief e-mail exchange with someone from ST. The journalist from ST wrote an article about Singaporeans being apathetic about the China-Japan row then. I wrote him an e-mail suggesting that the ST Forum, by choosing to publish letters of complaint instead of those discussing serious issues, isn’t helping.

Specifically, I singled out letters like ""She shed 9kg. Now she is underweight" and "Luggage Blues on Valuair" as instances that should be directed to agencies of consumer affairs and the companies themselves.

You can read more on the comments portion of an archived tomorrow.sg page. I want to focus on his reply:

Defending the Straits Times Forum (in May 2005)

1. ST Journalist (not the ST Forum editor): ST is a paper that is "everything to everyone."
2. ST Journalist: Forum editor goes for the best and the widest range of issues.
3. ST Journalist: There are plans to publish all received letters online.
   

Those three points are weak, and highlight a single problem - declining readership:
ST is not "everything to everyone." It is not a community newspaper
The journalist romanticized the monopolistic role of the ST by saying that ST needs to publish letters like banning cats in HDBs because it is a community paper at the same time it is a national paper. But the Straits Times is not a community paper - it is a ruling party influenced publication. After the online elitist debacle about "poor people not helping themselves," Mr Heng's "old people not helping themselves" letter sounds terribly offensive and lacking in political savvy, and creates the suspicion of a background force propagating the mantra that Singapore cannot regress into a welfare state.

A community newspaper would be concerned about old people getting injured, and reporting on how the rest of the community is acting to improve the situation. Unlike the ST, a community newspaper does not publish letters telling people their foolishness is to blame for their own injuries, that they constitute a "time bomb."

I hope no one mistakes my next reference as bad taste, I mean it all in positive terms: Nobel Prize winner Alan MacDiarmid recently died because he "fell down stairs in his home." He was rushing to catch a flight. Would Mr. Heng consider Dr. MacDiarmid morally and socially irresponsible? He is a Nobel Prize winner after all, responsible for much more than taking care of grandkids (a noble task I must say. I love you, Grandma). He was just living his life to the fullest. I don't know what advice Mr Heng would give Dr. MacDiarmid - don't be last minute?

More disturbing is ST Forum Editor's decision to publish that letter. What did he/she mean to achieve by selecting such a letter of bad taste? If the argument is to provoke debate, should the ST Forum then publish letters of bad taste sliming the ruling party's policies? The ST cannot pretend to be a community newspaper because it is not - it tries to portray itself as close to hearts of Singaporeans so more Singaporeans would read it, but Mr Heng's letter exposes ST's inability to understand what a community newspaper does.

Forum editor goes for widest range of issues, but "best letters?"
Some of the most best, meaning most insightful articles/opinions on Singapore are now appearing on the Internet, as writers find that they no longer have to be at the mercy of an opaque ST Forum policy. As more Singaporeans head online to debate national issues, the ST Forum will not have the best letters sent in to begin with.

More letters published, but not all
The ST Forum can't publish all letters, because of strict OB markers. The Internet has more relaxed rules (thankfully). Another reason why the ST Forum's readership is being diluted - why be told what to think?

Personally, I haven't been reading the ST Forum for a while. Or the ST. Not from the lack of trying - here's a good reason: I am a STI Online subscriber, but I frequently reach the screen that says that the ST servers are overloaded, and please wait or come back later. I don't get that - I thought the point of subscribing is so I'm supporting the purchase of more servers so I don't get that screen.

Anyway, as Yawning Bread implies, I agree that the ST is facing serious problems of the readers' trust and the exodus to online sources. I grew up reading the ST cover-to-cover, so I hope it will be given the freedom to develop into newspaper like the New York Times, read at places far from its source, rather than what it is today - a newspaper with a captive audience it can't keep captive.