Daily Lessons from Life 05 November 2010 - Political context important when considering media's role Shanmugam

Channel NewsAsia: "Political context important when considering media's role: Shanmugam - 05 November 2010

SINGAPORE: Singapore Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam said the role that the media can play in society, needs to be seen in the context of its political structure.

He also said the media does not operate in a vacuum.

Speaking at a forum on press freedom at Columbia University in New York, Mr Shanmugam said Singapore, being a small society with a short and shared history, cannot 'withstand the harm' that can be caused by giving its media the same role that the US media has.

He said such a move may lead to what he calls 'irreparable harm', which Singapore may not be prepared to accept.

For example, he said racial and religious fault lines may be easily exploited.

Mr Shanmugam said the government's view of the media's role is that it should be a neutral medium for conveying news."

This is a consistent view by the Singapore government throughout the years. It should NEVER change as it is the right way to go. The USA style press freedom WITHOUT responsibility is simply wrong and it would be good that the USA follows Singapore's definition of 'Responsible Press Freedom'.

Lessons for me are:

1. if it is based on facts and evidence, report it without fear or favour! When you get sued in the court of laws, you should be able to defend yourself adequately! Of course, if it is against the government, greater scrutiny will be provided and there will be skeptics that said the judiciary will not be impartial. This again, is only possible if your facts and evidence are NOT watertight!;

2. the sacrosanct 'out-of-bound markers' like race, religion and language MUST never be allowed to be trivialized. These 3 topics are emotional matter. My stance has always been: when it involved emotion, there is no place for rationality. It can spin out of control very quickly and easily. Hence, it must be defended at all cause. Again, if there is great injustice in these 3 areas, no discussing them does not mean they won't find their ways into politics. When that happened, it simply meant that Singaporeans had ignored or neglecting the need to unwaveringly, relentlessly work on maintaining fairness, including appearance of fairness, to these 3 volatile areas;

3. we will continue to be criticize and challenge by foreign NGOs like Transparency International and 'Lawyers without Borders' who simply do not want to acknowledge that overall Singapore's actual record in keeping equity, laws and orders is excellent. The bitter part that these foreign NGOs cannot accept or understand is the strict policy by the politicians who will defend their honors with absolutely vigour and brutality against libelous accusations. It is the way of life in Singapore. Better recognize that and go back to point no. 1 above here if you want to make accusations!

Mr Shanmugam said what he had to say. It is up to the critics to decide how much they can accept! The tension will be there - for a while!