MID-WEEK THOUGHTS

Spare a thought for Journalists

On a recent trip to Singapore, a relative gave me a booklet titled “Lee Kuan Yew at 80”. It was published as part of LKY’s 80th birthday celebration and contained 80 of his quotes on various subjects. It took me all of 15 minutes to read it through and that was that. I did not think of the quotes anymore, until Monday morning that is.

Monday morning Jeff Ooi blogged on the sacking by Al-Jazeera of Yvonne Ridley, the senior editor of its (Al-Jazeera) English language website. Apparently, the lady had been very critical in her articles on the justification for the Iraq war. This coming after DKL’s dismissal and news of changes in the Star, brought to mind this quote by LKY published in the booklet –

“Some are naïve enough to believe that freedom of the press is sacrosanct and unlimited. Freedom of the press really means the freedom of the owner, the man who owns the newspaper, who hires and fires the journalists” (Lee Kuan Yew at 80.Singapore Press Holdings Ltd 2003. pp60).

Which then triggers my recall of another quote, this time by our Tun Dr. M, which sort of clarify “owner” for LKY –

“All the Press is controlled. If not by the government, then by the journalist themselves, the editors, sub-editors, advertisers and owners.” [Cruez, A.F. & Loh, D. (2002, June 3). PM: Don’t glamorize criminals. New Straits Times.pp4]

How true! But the irony of it all was that the “owners” were the two ex-PMs themselves, whether directly or indirectly and whether intentionally or by default. And the consequences we all know too well.

To be fair, the Press in Singapore and Malaysia was very much controlled even as far back as pre-independence days. Said Zahari, a political detainee for 17 years in Singapore, said in his book, Dark Clouds At Dawn: A Political Memoir, that “all sorts of pressures were put on the leadership of the Utusan Melayu to support colonial government policy in Malaya and Singapore….the Utusan Melayu was told to stop criticizing (sic) government policies”. Tan Sri Samad Ismail, a reknowned journalist was a “casualty” of these times. He was detained while holding the post of Deputy Editor with the Utusan for his alleged ties with leftist leaders and organizations. And the forerunner of the strictive Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984, was actually the ordinance introduced by the British, the Printing Presses Ordinance 1948.

And also control of the Press is not peculiar to our neighbor and us. It happens in other countries too, even the seemingly very democratic countries of the West. In the aftermath of the September 11 incident, attempts have been made to curtail free flow of information even in the bastions of democracy, the US of A and United Kingdom. Only today I read, in this article by Farish Noor, about the American Media being warned not to show images of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presumably, as Washington tries "damage control" of its unpopular Iraq and Afghanistan policies. The British were known to have put off the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act it adopted in 2000.

In these developed countries there is another dimension to this control of the Press, that exercise by the Media Moguls. Have we not heard stories of, arguably, the greatest of them all, Rupert Murdoch. Malaysians would remember Andrew Neil, the former editor of the Sunday Times of London, who apparently lost his job because of an article he wrote about Mahathir and corruption some years ago. Murdoch, the paper’s owner was at that time interested in expanding his business in the Far East, and antogonising a leader of a potential country to penetrate was a “no no”. Betsy R. Vasquez writing in the Moderate Independent said, ”His assault on free speech and free press is world-wide. But truly, Murdoch doesn't care about free speech or anything else - he just uses any means to try and get more money for himself,….”

So, in circumstances like these, spare of a thought for journalists, especially our local ones. They are not back-boneless per se but made to look like they are because of the constraints they have to work under.

Shaila Koshy, in a speech she gave on World Press Freedom Day in 2002, gave this humorous but insightful example of what goes behind the scene, so to speak –

Scenario one: Reporter comes back with story, briefs the editor and writes the article. The editor clears it for use but it is not published as an editor higher up the food chain decides the article may put the papers publishing permit in jeopardy.

Scenario two: Reporter comes back with story, briefs the editor and writes the article. The editor junks it without consulting other editors as other similar stories have been junked.

Scenario three: Reporter comes back with story, briefs the editor but leaves out details that he/she notices is generally censored. Unsurprisingly, the article makes print!

Scenario four: Reporter comes back and tells editor there was no story.

“Yonder, sat a Fourth Estate more important than them all (the nobles, the clergy and the commoners)”, uttered by Edmund Burke in the House of Common in 18th.century England and referring to the journalists in the press gallery will remain an ideal.