It's one of continuing to stress, in the hope that repetition makes for widespread acceptance, that our mainstream media is "credible", a proxy term to suggest that what they report is the Truth. Each time such an assertion is made, the implicit slander against non-mainstream media is also repeated, that it is full of lies and half-truths; it is not "credible".

Another bit of old wine in a new bottle poured out by Lui was to praise our media for not going for "aggressive journalism" and "aggressive campaigning" unlike "some foreign newspapers". It is interesting how our media is supposed to reflect our preference for unthinking apathy rather than active opinion.

He said our mainstream media "investigate thoroughly before they publish" and if ever they take a position critical of the establishment and institutions, "they do so from the point of view of responsibility". Subtext: Non-mainstream media do not investigate, and thus their criticisms are to be treated as unfounded and irresponsible.

The above quotes are taken from text of the speech as found on the Singapore government's press centre.

 
The little old lady

He also touched on a recently produced local film that had a scene of an old woman collecting cardboard boxes from backlanes for income.

As an example of selective reporting on the blogosphere, Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui cited a recent video of an elderly Singaporean woman who makes a living by collecting and selling scrap cardboard.

The clip was flagged by bloggers as evidence that Singapore did not take sufficient care of its poor and elderly.

But these commentators 'did not mention she had a three-room flat that was fully paid for, and that she has five children but did not want to rely on them to support her', said RADM Lui, who became Acting Minister in April. 

-- Straits Times, 10 September 2009,
Advice to main media: stay balanced.

This bit was not in the prepared text of his speech; it might have been said during question time.

I have a question: Did the Straits Times check the veracity of the minister's claim -- that she owned a three-room -- before publishing it? Did the newspaper "investigate thoroughly" before they published, as the minister had lauded them? Did they check whether the five children were able to support the old lady -- something that the minister implied but did not say so explicitly?

Or are double standards the order of the day? Do our mainstream media take the government's words at face value, while ignoring adverse information and viewpoints until so obvious or proven that they can no longer be ignored?

 
How many layers make a truthful fact?

This "little old lady" vignette also serves to point out two analytical issues which the minister glossed over in his haste to beat the propaganda drum.

The first is this: Facts come in layers. For example, Lui did not dispute that the video was factual in showing an old woman collecting cardboard. He suggested that another layer of fact is needed to interpret the first: that she was a property owner and had five children. I have asked for another layer: what is the financial situation of the five children?

One can go on and on adding layers to facts, each layer altering one's perception to some degree. Generally, it would never be possible to exhaust all layers of facts. Since that is the case, then one may ask: How many layers have to be unearthed for the Truth to be understood? If perception is so contingent upon the adding of layers of information, how will we ever know when we have grasped the Truth?

In other words, how do we know how good our mainstream media is at telling us the complete stories, that is, how "credible" they are?

 
News or opinion?

The second issue that the minister glossed over is this: There is a difference between news and reportage on the one hand, and commentary on the other, although I would grant, it is never easy to draw a clear line between the two. Nonetheless, careless conflation of the two does not help a better understanding of the issues. It is arguable whether any non-mainstream online medium in Singapore is really in the business of providing news. Once in a while, they cover significant events with flair, for example, The Online Citizen's coverage of the Extraordinary Meeting of AWARE in May this year, but I don't think anyone can claim to offer news reporting on a regular basis.

What they offer is mostly commentary. So any comparison between mainstream and non-mainstream media should be on the basis of the quality of commentary. That is to say, even if, as Lui said in his speech, Singapore's mainstream media "remains the dominant source of information", a claim he supported by reference to the 2008 Nielsen Media Index survey, saying "75 per cent of those surveyed selected newspapers as their preferred source of news", that's news. Can it be otherwise? How can non-mainstream media contest at being the "preferred source of news" when it is not actually a source of news?

Does the "75 percent" figure reflect the quality of mainstream versus non-mainstream, or merely the lack of alternatives?

 
News or socio-political news?

This is also the kind of statistic that is highly dependent on the way a question is phrased. We need to be sharp about what the word "news" means to people. Most people do not care to read political news. They buy newspapers or tune into TV channels for stories about crime, suicide, food, neighbours fighting each other, celebrities breaking up, and sports, sports and more sports. Since these are rarely politically sensitive subjects, our mainstream media may very well do an unhindered and relatively comprehensive job, producing content people find worthwhile reading, thus making mainstream media their "preferred source" of news.

But a subset of Singaporeans cares about political news. Tease out this subset and the "preferred source" percentage may be nowhere near 75 percent. Rephrase the question to "socio-political commentary" -- which is what non-mainstream platforms do -- and the percentage may be different again.

By foolishly remaining complacent about people trusting mainstream media for "news", the government is blindsided to another set of dynamics: It is commentary that more likely shapes political opinion and it is doubtful if the mainstream media play a hegemonic role anymore in the formation of political opinion. Moreover, as elections in Malaysia and other countries have shown, political opinion formed by the net-savvy minority can spread by word of mouth and other means to non-net-savvy sections of the population. 

Once more, let me go back to the "little old lady" story to offer an example of interpretation. The same facts can support divergent opinion.

Let's accept, for argument's sake, these as facts:

1. She collects cardboard for income;

2. She owns a fully-paid-up three-room flat.

3. She has five children but she does not want to rely on them for income.

Alternative interpretation: Does this not tell you there is something very wrong with the way we have shaped this society economically? Does she not typify the widespread problem of Singaporeans being asset rich but cash poor? Have we spent 44 years overemphasising property (a totally bourgeois preoccupation) at the expense of other priorities in life?

Here is an elderly woman with no other cash income. How is she going to feed herself? What about medical care? Owning a flat is not the answer to everything, is it?

As for her five children, are they the "squeezed generation" having to support their parents, and their own children, and sink more money into more property themselves? Do they even have children of their own? Are they like so many Singaporeans, so cash-squeezed and time-squeezed that having children is put off -- thus our declining birth rate? A great measure of success, that.

In other words, does this woman, given three facts above, represent a bright spot or a dark stain on Singapore and 44 years' of governance?

As this example shows, I can grant the mainstream media their "credibility" over news reporting and "facts", but they can still lose the battle over commentary and interpretation. I can, but I won't. As I asked earlier, are double standards the order of the day? Do our mainstream media take the government's words at face value, while ignoring adverse information and viewpoints until so obvious or proven that they can no longer be ignored?

Yet, 75 percent still find them credible. Which must mean something, surely. But what? If you would recall that the minister praised our mainstream media for the absence of active opinion (or "aggressive journalism" as he called it), let me ask this: Is our mainstream media considered credible simply because, after 44 years, our people have been made apathetic and credulous?

© Yawning Bread