Singapore's objective media - McLuhan's paradox personified?

Sterile, but objective. If nothing else, the Singapore mainstream media has gained for itself an international reputation for being so adamant about upholding the "truth" that the Singapore public has grown to demand nothing less than this standard in the news they read and the media they choose to read it from.

This mentality has, over the years of Singapore's short media history, led to a close association (or confusion) between the media and the message. One would argue that The Straits Time, our most widely circulated newspaper to date, holds that very premium quality that goes towards building much of its reputation for objectivity and phenomenon market share.

Any issues with that? None, unless you consider the editorial piece “what is democracy? A tortoise, not a hare” (23 Sep 2006) by Janadas Devan, Senior Writer for The Straits Times.

The very fact that it is an editorial commentary lends it considerable weight - only the most senior of The Straits Times’ stable of writers have the privilege to pen commentaries.

Unfortunately, this privilege has been, in my opinion, much abused by Devan. I would challenge that the article is not only lacking in a balanced analysis of its topic, which is modern democracy, but borders on misleading.

Devan starts with a definition of democracy - a system of governance identified by open voting and constitutional law. He then proceeds to compare the ''success" of different countries, chiefly Thailand and Britian but eventually leading to his views on Singapore and what one can infer is the United States, by oblique reference to the latter’s famed "free press". His point of contention: That open voting and constitutional rights do not necessarily lead to a peaceful life for citizens, suggesting that the social democracy that typifies nations like Singapore would.

The argument seems sound, with one major problem: Devan's preamble on democracy. It does not take much effort to Google for its definition - both Wikipedia and Dictionary.com seem to describe a system of government that has "for the people, by the people" as its chief objective. Voting rightfully becomes a means to that end.

But Devan's own dictionary seems to have an additional clause on constitutions. While it is noted that constitutional rights form an important part of many democracies, it is by no means a key defining characteristic of democratic government. Conversely, "power to the people" and "clean and open elections" seems to be.

Without going into details of the practical implementation of democracy - nations have by and large steered clear of "ideal democracy", opting instead to adopt certain parts for their own nation building needs - it seems obvious that Devan's skewed definition has led to a rather biased view. If his purpose in writing the article is to profess that ''moderate democracies" like Singapore are doing a better job, then it should be called into question, simply because of its blatant disregard for accuracy.

It is a sad reminder to this nation that our mode of democracy has not led to journalism that is for the people, by the people, even by our most well-respected daily. N