So, what’s the link?

It could be a case of statistics taken out of context – something that occurs more often than we would want to believe. Or it could be a survey asking the wrong questions.

Either way, there was something about the report on BBC World Service’s survey on press freedom by Zul Othman (“Social stability is key: Poll”, 11 Dec) that just didn’t seem to fit right.

To begin with, the poll drew a line between press freedom and social harmony. Whether it was intended or not, poll respondents were effectively given this line to choose which they preferred. To complicate things further, the article on the poll indicated that “the world was divided over the importance of press freedom”, and proceeded to reinforce this connection by citing respondents’ views on the need for press regulation against the extent to which they desire social harmony.

But is that a valid relationship that respondents should choose between? Does a rise in press freedom necessarily and always lead to social unrest?

Recent history seems to state otherwise. The recent protests in Myanmar , in any degree of severity we choose to hear and believe, are surely an indication that restrictions on press freedom do not necessarily guarantee social harmony. Should we then expect the state-regulated Burmese media to be responsible for failing to keep the peace?

Of course, determining whether the foreign media, alleged to have incited the unrest, had any role to play in creating merely a perception of injustice is a task best left to the historians. But at this moment, some distinction is needed between social unrest and media regulation, as there are too many other factors that can cause unrest.

If we believe that the media should keep the peace, as the people desire, no matter the cost to its freedom, then we are ignoring the gulfs that really exist between people. Conversely, a free press can and should be viewed as the arbitrator of the often diverse views floating within societies, which can only serve to better dispel social suspicion and create understanding.

Another point of contention is the result on how different societies value press freedom and how they rank their own media. In spite of the mild irony that a poll commissioned by the BBC World Service should not be trusted, as a reflection of its own accuracy rankings among its citizens, I believe this is one area of the poll that we should re-evaluate carefully.

Interestingly, citizens who value press freedom seem to be more critical of the media in their own countries, while those who value it less in comparison to social harmony, for lack of an alternative yardstick, seem to be more accepting of the news they receive. This suggests that there are certain contextual biases of such a poll, where parallel comparisons between countries are difficult because the citizens of each use different values to rate their media.

So, for example, the media in the United States and Germany might be no less accurate than their counterparts in India and Singapore , only that Americans and Germans have developed an acutely critical mindset towards what they read in the papers and expect more of their media.

This brings us to the point on how important people feel it is for the media to represent their views. Clearly, the poll reflected people’s desire to participate in the mediated discussions that surround them. Even the Germans have a large number amongst them who desire their view to be expressed by the media.

And in that, we could even possibly find the solution to social harmony. As a free media begins to better reflect the views and desires of its readers, we could even hope that more would take their grievances to the press to be openly discussed and debated, not to the streets to be fought over. N

What makes a journalist?

"Anyone can cook, but not everyone can be a great chef!"

Or something like that, so says Chef Gustav in Pixar's latest movie offering, Ratatoullie.

By all counts, this can be good advice for any profession, even if it comes from an animated ghost. It we take pause to look around, we will surely notice those who are true masters of their craft, those struggling to keep it all together, and even those clueless to the fact that they are better off not doing what they are doing.

Besides cooking, writing comes across as something that most of us, with the privilege of a good education, can do. With technology, the line between the professional and amateur has blurred, as the easy availability of blogs opens up opportunities for budding writers to publish their works. Many writers took to the new tool with a wide spectrum of topics – from their life story to their pet’s life story, gossip to hobbies, politics to noble causes, short essays to whole books, and most significantly, news.

Some blogs and blog aggregators have been set up to run very much like news websites. In contrast to traditional news agencies, these rely almost exclusively on citizen journalists to fill their e-pages. Many individual writers have even established their own following of readers. In many cases, blogs have broken the news even before established print and broadcast media.

While these successes have given bloggers a nod of approval from the public, the professionals of the news trade are less celebratory. The established media have been quick to scoff at blogs; words like “unreliable”, “lack of accountability”, “naval-gazing” and “irrelevant” have often been leveled at bloggers.

“Adds an interesting dimension that complements traditional media” is about as far as the established media would go to admit that blogs are causing an impact on the way people navigate the world around them, especially for those who are no stranger to the Internet. Indeed, the value of blogs to society should be regarded as nothing less than revolutionary, given the insights and debates that some blogs generate even beyond their readership. Perhaps it is not so surprising that even the most trivial of bloggers can have their names in the limelight.

One begins to wonder if, in the world of journalism, the definition of greatness might even begin to shift to the literary pheasants and, yes, even the “rats” of the blogosphere.

Should journalists be concerned about the impact that blogs have on the writing community? Is the rising tide of voices shouting from cyberspace threatening to drown the good sense and literary excellence of the profession?

It would still be premature to decide if bloggers can or should be measured against professional writers. The majority of bloggers probably never wanted to be compared like that, anyway, so why the overt concern with rice bowl issues?

Truth be told, blogs present an interesting dimension (or a threat) to news not because of the content standards they adhere to - many bloggers can't even string together a proper sentence. Rather, they thrived because they have stuck to two age-old principles of journalism that has given the news industry its appeal since it began centuries ago.

First, timeliness. Society has gotten used to the fact that eyes on the ground and words from the horse’s mouth makes much better news than what someone else tells you. With the advent of moblogging, some readers are turning to citizen journalists first for their news fix. With editorial constraints and sheer lack of manpower, news agencies look set to play catch-up to bloggers who, not bound by any contract except an unvoiced willingness to share, trade entries and links with each other to cover all angles.

Second, relevance. Citizen journalists are mostly everyday people concerned with everyday issues that their readers can relate to. For sure, a readership of five or five hundred is nothing compared to the thousands who flip or scroll through the official dailies, but for those few, the average man's blog makes a lot more sense and touches their hearts in a way that the professionals have avoided. Professional news gatherers, either consciously or not, still struggle to define the difference between objective truth and subjective reality, and to present news within these boundaries in accordance with their editorial policies, even as reality takes precedence in people’s minds today.

As a society matures, its people will tend to believe in their own opinions, values and situations more than what others suggest, and this will have a bearing on what they choose to consume, including news and information. Whether that can and should be the case is something that history will decide, but it is a fact that is impossible to ignore.

Does this mean that professional journalists have lost the plot with their readers? Not quite yet. Indeed, reports on the recent Indonesian earthquakes in Singapore have demonstrated the news industry’s desire to stay on top. The almost-instantaneous reports screened many home videos from everyday people, mostly taken on mobile phones, of shaking chandeliers and evacuating people. Compared to the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, where similar home video footage show the horror of crashing walls of water and people being swept away, the content seems very different, but the desire to translate reality, as experienced by people on the ground, is there.

Does a reliance on pure “reality bytes”, then, make a great journalist? Again, I would hazard a no. A lecturer and mentor of mine once told me that we always write for an audience, and so what we write must be of some importance, relevance and value to them. Reflecting reality alone is not enough; a writer must also let his readers see how that reality makes sense to their situation. It need not agree with their views and beliefs, but it should definitely address these views and beliefs as valid and important concerns.

As we become more mature as a society, there is a need for journalists, traditional or online, professional or citizen, to understand and act on social desires and trends, but to temper this with a clear idea of who their readers are and deliberate on what value they can add for them. N

ERP draws more blood from our main arteries

I seem to have a bone to pick whenever it comes to our transportation system. In any case, Today didn't pick this up, which I wrote a couple of days back - too wordy, I suppose... :?

What really cheezed me off was that the counter arguements were right there, but nobody sieved it out! Two key points: An extra $2b from transport revenue (not evening counting COE), and the apparent lack of imagination on the part of LTA (or perhaps a dogged determination to believe that ERP really works).

* * * * *

There is something decidedly disturbing when you run into a traffic jam while driving home from the city at 8pm.

Do Singaporeans really love their work so much that they stay so late? It would seem like they are avoiding their families on purpose. It makes even less sense when the government is encouraging better work-life balance.

But that is likely to be the common situation when the new Electronic Road Pricing charges kick in on Nov 1.

For sure, ERP as a method for easing traffic congestion is not unique in the world, but this probably is: A bitterly amusing attempt to regulate traffic that flows out of the city. Most countries would be concerned with overcrowding in their central business district, but we seem to be keener in keeping vehicles longer within the CBD.

Like it or not, some drivers will be inclined to stay back later in the office to avoid the additional $0.50 or $1 ERP charges they will have to pay every day. They would not be able to leave earlier, of course, since most people only leave work after 6pm, by which time the new charges would have kicked in.

But they will also not be able to keep it up for long. The toll on family life, or the same traffic jam that used to plague them at 6pm, would eventually force them to revert to their old timing and bear the additional cost.

The new ERP charges cover all the major arterial highways out of the city. To avoid these additional charges, drivers will have to take a longer drive on small roads. What happens when these small roads, already congested with traffic lights, start to get crowded, too? Will more ERP gantries be erected, as Ms Janice Tay fears (“Same old traffic-stopping story”, Today, Aug 25-26)? Not surprisingly, alternative egress routes like Holland Road and Bukit Timah Road are already being monitored for congestion.

It is hard to imagine, then, why the Land Transport Authority would look to ERP to solve our congestion problems. If anything, ERP has done nothing more than make traffic jams a predictable occurrence, which shifts with every change in timing, yet never removed.

Claiming that ERP works simply because traffic speed has increased borders on delusional, and we have yet to hear a logical case for the relationship. Contrarily, increased traffic speed can be due to many other reasons – crazy drivers, more powerful cars, halting of circle line construction, or better road works. The last reason is something that LTA should be proud of and should continue working towards, instead of toying around with ERP timings.

And while having five more ERP gantries that automatically activate when traffic speed falls below 20kmh might seem innovative, by no stretch of the imagination would these be of use in easing traffic congestion. Rather, they become a guessing game for drivers, and are of absolutely no use in route planning. It might even lead to more reckless driving as drivers jockey for the best escape route, just in case their speedometers drop below the mark.

What, then, is stopping LTA from coming up with other solutions? It cannot be for lack of funds. If we were to take the average cost of road license to be $800, with 680,000 cars on our roads, this would have generated $5.44 billion for LTA in the last decade. Not even counting the approximate $810 million collected from ERP charges since 1998, the $3.4 billion spent on improving our roads (not even factoring in what could have gone to building homes, industries and school) falls short of another $2 billion that LTA can draw on.

If Mr Raymond Lim believes that Singaporeans understand the compromise between smooth-flowing roads and car growth, then he might have overestimated our drivers’ understanding on why the road taxes they paid have not been plowed back in full to the same system.

Sadly, the perception that ERP is a responsibility that only drivers have to bear is a myopic attempt to deceive ourselves. Has LTA considered other economic and social consequences every time they decide to hike ERP charges?

For instance, if ERP eventually succeeds in forcing drivers off the roads into our public transport system, would it over-tax the network for those who don’t drive? Imagine if just half of 800,000 drivers, with passengers and baby prams in tow, hit the trains and buses, every single morning. Would this network, with trains now running at 2-minute intervals during rush hour, be able to cope? Such a situation will either make our public transport system unbearably inefficient and unsafe, or give our operators more reason to raise fares to cover additional operating costs.

In addition, drivers who give up on congested and ever-more costly highways will find themselves burning more fuel when taking longer, alternative routes – probably cheaper but not much faster, and still spewing pollution. Only this time, the fumes and noise will be closer to our homes, spread out into streets that lack the wide buffer zones of our highways.

Even worse, ERP charges do not just tax personal car owners, once they reach a certain level impossible for businesses to absorb. This will lead to increase in prices for almost anything we buy that spends time on our well-ERPed roads.

There is a lot more that needs to be done in LTA’s attempts to reduce traffic congestion. Chief among them is a need to understand and accept the mentality of drivers. The ERP system is a mathematical solution for a mathematical problem, but people are not robots that react to logical impetus. N

"Internet: A wild child crying to be heard" - Today

Today published "A new media culture", here.

The headline is a little misleading, even grossly inaccurately. The Internet is not the wild child. At least say the bloggers are, but even that is not entirely correct. Ah well...

This one came out really late, but more my fault - did not check e-mail earlier, or would have seen the editor asking for my personal info for the print... :) N

A new media culture

Some attention has been dedicated to online media in recent weeks, perceivably because of a number of forums on the topic, such as the New Media Conference and the 16th Asian Media Information and Communication Centre seminars.

The topics of discussion – or at least what was highlighted in our local dailies – revolve around two themes: regulation and market share. Invariably, the experts and mainstream media pundits at these forums seem overtly interested in deciding on the fate of our online media environment as either something to be controlled or a channel through which their objectives can be promoted.

What was sorely lacking, however, seems to be an understanding of online media – websites, blogs, vlogs, forums and the ever-expanding variety of bold new online communication concepts – as a cultural phenomenon unique to our times.

In reflecting on the rise in terrorism in recent years, regulation of online communication is a valid concern. Add to that the volumes of petty strife, malicious content and what can best be described as byte anarchy floating and churning over the modem lines, and the temptation to clamp down on ‘radical’, politically incorrect and plain rude websites and blogs is an impossible itch to ignore. The futility of that is, of course, common knowledge today.

Yet another take on online media is their market potential, both as a source of revenue for their eyeball-magnet owners and as another platform on which mainstream media can ride on to steal the attention of said eyeballs. A very enterprising gesture, but hardly given to consideration of what kind of “wild child” online media really is.

The horse is hitched on the online bandwagon, rearing to go, but the wagon might very well be facing the wrong direction. It is sad to see that, with so much talk about online media, not much of it revolves around trying to understand what it really is to begin with.

Perhaps a simpler approach is to go back to basics and view online media as a communication tool, not too different from every media in its time – television, radio and print – that was viewed with as much suspicion, repulse, and a smart money-making motive waiting in the wing.When television first appeared, pundits thought it would carry nothing but crass to rot the brain, forever eroding the literacy people have taken pain to cultivate. No points for guessing what the adamant views were, then, when the printed press first hit the streets.

What they did not count on, for each and every emerging media, is a tenacity that draws energy from one key source: The desire for people to reach out and communicate. It was a pervasive tide that no one could have resisted, because people craved information that the media was invented to provide, first within a localised scale, and slowly expanding its sphere of influence. People crave to know everything, not just what their neighbbours did, but also what was happening in the world, and why it was happening. The floating messages were captured, internalised and discussed, giving us greater awareness of both the people we can and cannot see with our own bare eyes.

Online media would likely bear the same marks for our generation, reflecting our desire to reach out and communicate. But there is one important difference: Instead of information from an external source, the individual seeks to create his own information and exchange it with someone else. Hence, we arrive at the term “user-generated content” or what some would ungainly acronymise as UGC.

Sadly, we are still stuck at thinking of it purely in terms of UGC. The content, and not the impetus behind it, becomes the focus. Have we bothered to ask why our youths prefer to spend hours blogging in detail about the mispronunciations in a politician’s speech, just so that their pals staying in the opposite block can read it and have a good laugh, rather than engage each other in constructive political dialogue? Or are we more inclined to see it as an unavoidable trend that we need to catch up with to re-focus their eyeballs on our mature causes and worthy pursuits?

Perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that we are a more educated generation, even as we become more enclosed and inward looking as a society. Not only are we more adept at languages and communicating, but we begin to form our own independent ideas and ideals. Ideals cannot be constraint in the mind, and we seek a channel for its expression. If the local dailies cannot carry it, we are confident and savvy enough to start a forum thread or blog that can.

It is also increasingly clear that online media is evolving, even in Singapore where the rules of engagement for politically correct content preceded our first blogger. Online media creators are constantly pushing the boundaries of a cyberspace they have already decided belongs to them. We can always build fences around it and install alarms within, but you can be sure that these measures will be something the savvy citizen journalist will be quick enough to step around and the emerging social journalist will be bold enough to defy. Of course, not before critical thinking gets a beating, and our small brain-dependent nation can ill afford that.

Let’s face it, unless we start looking at online media in its own terms, to see that this is a realm where ideals are more important than the news, we will forever miss the picture and no amount of cajoling monkey tricks, talking down or stern regulation can bring online media in line with the mainstream media we have become so familiar with.

More alarmingly, what would have been a meaningful form of communication can give way to and endless flow of accusations and rebuttals, serious or jokingly, in virtual or actual reality. The stakes are not just values and eyeball-market share, but a disjointed society that becomes increasingly fragmented when we fail to understand and vehemently resist what we cannot align to our own ideals. N

"Pressing questions and the news" - Today

After a long break, I'm back at it again, here. It felt like a really beaten-to-death topic, so my response was easy - to some extent, even surprised that we still have to debate press freedom in Singapore.

Really grateful to Loh, who dropped me a note to nod his agreement. As always, feedback (good or bad) means that what I write is of some consequence to others and the topic is not written off yet.

Kinda nervy this time round, since I just changed my job and working in this new stat board felt a bit closer to the topic. Doesn't help also that the corporate media monitoring held my name...

But this is me, something I felt compelled to do. Actually, no; the following was really me, although the published was quite close.

* * * * *

It’s about pressing the wrong questions at all the right places

Today reported on the comments by one of Singapore’s leaders, when he mentioned about the need for the media to take an active role in “uncovering failings in the system” in order to keep our nation running clean and smooth.

If you think that these comments were made by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan at the recent Foreign Correspondents Association session, think again. They can actually be attributed to President S R Nathan on Aug 24, 2005.

Less than two years ago, my sense of guarded expectation was not unlike Loh Chee Kong’s (“Inform, educate, entertain...expose?”, Apr 2) when I read the President’s comments, as was Loh’s when he read Dr Vivian’s. Would the media take up the gauntlet and press ahead with a more enquiring stand when it comes to news reporting?

Less than two years on, nothing much seems to have changed. Indeed, given the controversy that surrounded the start of the NKF case in 2005, you might have expected news reporting in Singapore to boldly take us were our media has never gone before, into the uncharted territories of investigative journalism.

However, if the words of the President himself did little to jumpstart this, it is of little surprise that Loh remains skeptical that the possibly-soon-to-be Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts could result in a change of policy that would make much of a dent.

But is the state of journalism in Singapore so entrenched in the old Singapore Broadcasting Corporation’s charter, or that editors face such insurmountable bottom-line pressures, or the impossibility of finding a speck of dirt on the People Action Party’s snowy-white veneer, or even the dangers of defamation suits, be strong enough reasons to write off investigative journalism as unlikely, uneconomic, unnecessary or suicidal, respectively?

Perhaps the more pressing question is: Do we need to wait for a change in policy before our reporters become actual journalists?

To begin with, too many people would comfortably associate investigative journalism with exposés. If that were so, then the scooter-riding photographers who chased down Princess Diana would all be labeled investigative journalists, not paparazzi. Assuredly, it is the act of investigation, of asking even the most pressing, disturbing and annoying questions to get to the bottom of the matter, which sets investigative journalism apart.

Singapore’s media players have taken great pride in a long tradition of accountability, sticking to the truth instead of resorting to sensationalising news to make an erotic dollar. However, our media cannot claim to be accountable, only accurate – to the tee, in fact, by following every single detail in a cookie-cut press release. Only by asking the difficult questions that would propagate a more discerning public, or perhaps lend a voice to an already discerning public, would the media force those who want public buy-in into their programmes and policies to reveal every detail that has a likely impact on the same public.

Indeed, this renewed and purposeful loyalty to its readership can only mean more business for media players, as greater trust is built between the news and the reader, who can see their desires and feelings reflected and championed by the media. If Singapore’s media players still hold to their ancient standard of informing, educating and entertaining the public, they would probably realise that “education” and “engagement” today have blurred lines. Even the Education Ministry might testify to that.

And while we all hope for a clean government for Singapore, forever and ever, might we or even the PAP be caught unprepared by the slow seduction of corruption? If no amount of policy or praying can guarantee that politicians remain clean, as historically played out in many countries, then our best bet must be a discerning public, hopefully supported by a querying media. Beyond holding hints of an errant government accountable to the people, a querying media would also be a bane to future old NKFs who would think twice about trying their tricks.

Should we wait for a policy change for all this to happen? It is for the media players to decide. While it would be ideal to have media policies and laws that empowered journalists, rather than let them be “told how to behave” by MM Lee (Mediacorp’s “Why My Vote Matters”, 2006), our media companies should remember that all this actually took a fledging start more than a decade ago, when a tabloid called Project Eyeball pressed the boundaries with the current set of regulations that we, more or less, already have.

Our reporters should note that it is of greater importance, to themselves and the public, that they start getting in touch with their inner questioning child and make more sense of the news, rather than wait for things to happen. N

Good prata

On the topic of prata, was with my wife at Jalan Kayu the other night for a late dinner. Yes, this would be the stretch with the shop that I felt used to serve good prata, but the standards have dropped.

We came by this new shop, Chan Mali Chan, and I thought it deserves some mention. We were served by Chef Ishak, who studied in Switzerland and learnt his trade from a Swiss who spent a lot of time in Malaysia. Talk about roundabout international cuisine...


But what struck us most was he service and the REALLY CRISPY PRATA! Chef Ishak took the time to introduce himself and make recomendations to his menu. The tissue prata and prata bomb we ordered was, of course, lip smacking. It might have to do with the thin crowd at that late an hour, or that his shop is new with few customers, but I felt it was a good night of food for us. Definitely worth the recommend! N

"Most like it hot, but..." - Today

Media prata, as served by Voices in Today, here.

For once, I liked the headline, but the print seemed to have missed out what I felt were a few pertinent points, such as about how TT Durai abused media regulation in his attempt to intimidate SPH into silence... N

Serving Singapore the best “media prata”

Following was sent to Today. I believe I have a reasonable healthy level of respect for Cherian George, but something about Tor Ching Li's piece just doesn't click...

George's more elaborated take on it can be found here.

And an online disagreement (I think) here by Mr Wang Says So.

* * * * *

My family had our favourite prata shop. Every weekend would find us there, ordering a hefty brunch. As a child, I thought that shop sold the best prata in the world.

Somehow, that changed as I grew older. I’m not particularly fussy about food, but I could not help feeling that this particular prata shop lost its standard over the years. What used to be crispy prata now tasted like rubber.

It’s not too hard to see why. As the shop gained popularity, its clientele grew. To meet the increased demand, the shop started to make prata in advance. The pre-made prata, taken off the hotplate, started to turn cold and lose their crispiness. When customers placed their orders, they were expecting something fresh. What they got in the end was something that has been sitting on the counter for a good 15 minutes.

After a while, my family stopped patronising the shop. As I start my own family, my wife and I found our own source for a good weekend brunch. Surprisingly, the shop we went to was just a walk away at the coffee shop under our block. It wasn’t nearly as fantastic, but it was fresh and crispy – the way I felt prata should be, at the very least.

In many ways, Singapore’s media scene today is not too different from the prata business. We started with a few good players who produced news and entertainment that most Singaporeans found to be of good quality. But somehow, that changed after a while, and we begin to see more people turning to alternative online sources for their update on current affairs.

Has our mainstream media lost the plot and would this lead to their eventual demise? I would hazard a ‘no’, because just like my old prata shop, which until today still commands crowded tables of loyal customers every time I pass by, mainstream media still enjoy huge circulation and viewership figures. The only difference is that it now has to deal with, not direct competition, but an uneasy complement from electronic media.

In that sense, Dr Cherian George’s comments on our “schizophrenic nation” in Tor Ching Li’s article, “The dangers of dual media regulation” (12 Jan) warrants another look. Led only by gut feel and a generalisation on comments posted on blogs and forums, I would contest that most Singaporeans approach their dualistic consumption not with confusion, but with a fully aware sigh and chuckle.

Singaporeans still hold our mainstream media in high regard for their consistency in accuracy and objectivity in delivering current affairs. However, we might begin to be disgruntled with the way it is presented instead. Content from our mainstream media now begins to read, look and sound like prata that has been on the counter for a good 15 minutes – stale and rubbery.

Singaporeans might grudgingly accept the factual content of mainstream media, but nevertheless feel that it leaves an unsatisfying taste in our mouths. In search of that crispy edge in their current affairs and a better feel of the nation’s pulse, online media users turn to blogs and forums. In cyberspace, we find honest comments unbridled by the demands of objectivity. Occasionally extreme, sometimes humourous, usually unrefined, yet echoing a sentiment that is inexplicably true to our hearts. Best of all, it allows us to be creators of our own media and have a stake in the news-making process.

Singaporeans who go online are not confused. In fact, I would propose that we do so purposefully and precisely to experience different portrayals of our society, to revel in diversity of opinions or to seek our own value-community by taking a stand.

For that reason, removing or reducing media regulation for mainstream media might instead have an adverse effect on our national psyche, should that lead to a sudden loosening-up of traditional media. Like it or not, electronic media still have their subjectivity to contend with, and it should come as no surprise if Singaporeans eagerly need a medium that “behaves” in accordance with regulation and can give us the right facts, even if that is a medium we would love to hate.

Having said that, there are indeed dangers with excessive media regulation, but not in terms of its perceived biases against mainstream media and the imbalances that this creates with electronic media. Rather, it is the abuse of these regulations by parties with vested interests that we need to be wary of.

The case of the old NKF is now a clear textbook example. We have seen how TT Durai made use of the legal system, supported by media regulations, to pressure Singapore Press Holdings into silence. Even more alarming is the old NKF’s alleged manipulation of the media, by flooding the print forums with ghost letters and making use of the respectability quotient of our newspapers to support their cause.

As such, it might be timely and necessary for new media regulations to ensure protection of media practitioners – reporters, film makers and bloggers alike – from those who have the financial clout to subdue them, where they can only choose between settlement and a legal suit they cannot afford.

As Singapore launches more initiatives to bolster our connectivity hardware, our mainstream media might also want to reconsider their “filtering function” as the alternative heartware. Perhaps it is time to expand beyond presenting the facts, but also do justice to readers and viewers and indulge a little more in the nation’s pulse, rather than let the quantity of letters decide what to print as “alternative” views.

Without a significant change in media regulation as well as the way we approach media production, mainstream media will be forced to serve only prata kosong or telur, while online media serve up a smorgasbord of tissue, cheese and even milo variants. Even if we were to clamp down further and decree that milo prata is technically not a prata, another shop somewhere is serving prata bomb – benignly loaded with condensed milk, of course. It is really a matter of whether we have the broadband capability to find the recipe online. N