Press Freedom

I know a person who often blogs about freedom of speech issues in Singapore. A very thoughtful and kind gentleman, he recently wrote a blog piece suggesting that the lack of press freedom has resulted in Singaporeans blindly accepting the narrative spun by the government-controlled media that serves the PAP.

While I am not inclined to disagree with this claim, I think a further refinement in the argument is needed.  It is important to distinguish between freedom of the press and the ability to think independently.  While a lack of press freedom is very obviously detrimental to independent thought, the existence of such a freedom may only contribute marginally to the latter.  At least that's the view that I had derived from a Swiss wealth management professional that I often read.

Notice that despite living in the West, where there is far more press freedom than in Singapore, he had this to say:

In a world permeated by mass media and misinformation, independence in some ways has become more difficult. In order to keep up with what is going on in the world, you have to read and digest a lot of “stuff”. Most of what you will be reading will be mainstream news. Most of it will be nonsense: skewed myths, half-truths laced with contradictions, making it completely useless conceptually.

Mainstream information is “mainstream” because it is what sells; it's what the masses want to hear, not what they should hear. It seldom challenges the system or status quo and certainly never second-guesses the official data or the wisdom of those in office.

My own position is that if we take all the current journalists in Singapore, redistribute them into different privately-owned companies that are independent of the PAP government, what will emerge within a few short years will be a dominant paradigm that will still be considered oppressive by some Singaporeans, including myself.  The reason for this is that mainstream journalists, especially those who have attended journalism schools, are often of a certain ideological bent that we can call 'progressive socialist'.

When Western-style press freedom arrives in Singapore, we will see discrimination and persecution that will surprise many Singaporeans.

Am I supporting the PAP government or against press freedom? No, not at all.  I'm just warning that we will likely exchange the overt form of tyranny still practised by the PAP government for a more pervasive, subtler but more destructive kind.

Many anti-PAP Singaporeans will obviously disagree with me.  That's to be expected if we are to build a country with better freedom of speech. But I'll say this - we will let the facts in future decide who is right on this call.