Another way to see press freedom report

The following was sent to Today, and was never published. Somehow, I'm not really surprised. Saying that an MP is inaccurate is a sure way of getting booted by the local forum pages. :)

So here it is, for good measure...

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I refer to the article, “Press freedom index: S’pore 133rd” (Oct 21, P6). I would like to offer an alternative interpretation to what was reported.

I would like to point out the statement made by Mr Zaqy Mohamad, who said that Singapore’s improved position in the Reporters Without Borders (RWB) ranking “underlines that our press remains credible especially in the face of challenges like the new media”, contains a fundamental inaccuracy.

While being 133rd is nothing to shout about, we need to understand that the RWB ranking focused mainly on the power relationship between the state and the media of each nation ranked. It does not necessarily reflect the quality or credibility of the media, which is mainly a relationship between the media and its readers that can be affected by other factors, such as inaccurate reporting.

Mr Zaqy’s suggestion that Singapore’s improvement in the ranking could be attributed to media diversity also needs to be reconsidered. RWB includes bloggers as part of the media pool – the report views online media less as competition to mainstream media but as equals caught in the same power position.

In particular, I am disappointed that Assistant Prof Eugene Tan would dismiss the report as irrelevant to most Singaporeans. If we believe a power struggle between politics and media to form the backbone of our media environment, how would that influence the way we read our daily news? For sure, Singaporeans will continue to “take their media outlets seriously”, but with serious misgivings or not, that is another matter.

To note, it might not always be political pressure on media that we need to be concerned about. Recent examples such as an interest for bloggers to declare their commercial affiliations and an editor assaulted by employers of foreign workers are very real concerns that we will all do well to be savvier about.

To end, I would offer that anyone who is interested in press freedom worldwide – or for that matter, anyone who ever reads a newspaper – first take a long hard look at how research bodies like RWB or Freedom House conduct their research, as differences in methodology can yield different results.

We might then wish to decide that a particular index or even sub-index, as a measure against a particular set of international standards, holds dearer to us. This might then become an assertion that puts us in a better position to interpret the news that we pick up everyday. N