Scoop from Singapore

Freedom of the Press

On the first day of my first class at Ithaca, my professor handed us a copy of the First Amendment and told us to memorize it.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

We always talk about the media being the Forth Estate and a check on the government in our country, but I never truly realized the privilege and the importance of journalistic freedom.

The media in Singapore is highly regulated. Censorship of local news is common, Internet access is regulated, and ownership of satellite dishes is not allowed. Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, has criticized international media for trying to impose "their norms and their standards" on the small island. In July of 2006, he justified the government's control over journalism when he said Asian countries who got “the best financial results were those whose
media was less aggressive."

I guess what startled me the most was this article in the AsiaWeek.com. The article quotes Says Eddie Kuo, the then dean of Communication Studies at Nanyang Technological University, my university here.

According to Kuo, "There is this perception that we are so handcuffed that we cannot do a professional job. But look at our domestic coverage and decide whether or not we have been hiding vital information. Have we banished diversity of opinion on domestic politics?"

The prime minister in 2000, when this article was published, also defended the government's polilcy on journalism. Goh Chok Tong said, "Watchdog, meaning that they can investigate every matter, espousing views and setting their own agenda, I would not agree with that."

To think that students studying journalism here are taught that government censorship of the media is acceptable is just so different than everything I have been taught. I understand it is the law here, and all that people really know, but this nation is very developed in so many other ways. In my Media in America class we have discussed that there is freedom of the press in the US, but no one seems to feel the need to push for it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not big into political reporting myself right now. But to think that I couldn't here, that I could be fined or jailed just for publishing online (blogging this?) is a lot to wrap my mind around.

posted by Bride-to-Be @ 12:47 PM