Main Stories, Top Story - Written on Saturday, October 31, 2009 14:52 - 22 Comments
Freedom Press Index divorced from reality?
Gangasudhan / Photo courtesy of Mark O’Brien under Creative Commons
Singapore officials seem to have missed the point of the index by erroneously equating it with press quality.
IN RESPONSE to the Freedom Press Index 2009 released last week by Reporters Without Borders, our multi-million-dollar government has scrambled to address the unflattering results with a somewhat comical reaction.
On the back of the index’s release, which ranked Singapore 133rd among 175 countries (up from 144th place last year), the Straits Times (Press freedom index: Singapore 133rd) managed to get sound-bites last week from the chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Information, Communications and the Arts, Mr Zaqy Mohamad, who said the improved ranking “underlines that our press remains credible especially in the face of challenges like the new media” – whatever that means – and thought that it could be because of the media diversity here, with mainstream media going online and “a variety of newspapers like Today.
The competition creates pressure for media agencies to provide better-quality work” apparently.
Distinguishing Press Freedom from Press Quality
Never mind that the index does not purport to assess press quality – i.e. the quality of the reports, opinions or layout for that matter – and only concerns itself with the issue of press freedom. In fact, the methodology description itself ends with the assertion that the ‘index should in no way be taken as an indication of the quality of the press in the countries concerned’ which makes the good chairman’s analysis ‘divorced from reality’ – so to speak.
Well, what the index does try to do instead is reflect ‘the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom’. Which means to say that a lousy piece of trash article without self-censorship, government suggestion and selective reporting would score higher than an informative and articulate piece of propaganda.
The process of deriving the index itself involves administering an open-ended 40-question survey (not to be confused with ST’s polls that typically use 100 respondents picking off options skewed towards desired outcomes) to “Reporters Without Borders’ partner organisations (15 freedom of expression groups in all five continents), to its network of 130 correspondents around the world, and to journalists, researchers, jurists and human rights activists”.
A weighted score is then given for each country and the index ranks the countries according to the scores (the lower the better). This is not unlike our ‘celebrated’ meritocratic system in Singapore which repeatedly and conscientiously ranks everything based on a holistic weighted score (think PSLE and GCE ‘O’ Levels) with little regard for individual competencies in specific segments.
Unhappy Law Minister Tires Guests
In stark contrast to the ‘happy’ Mr Zaqy Mohamad with his sound-bite, Mr K Shanmugam meanwhile lambasted the index’s results in a keynote speech on Monday. Talking to a group comprising predominately of Americans at the Seasonal Meeting of the New York State Bar Association International Section, he acknowledged, “I know some of you had a long flight, many of you, and I had meant to skip this part. But I am going to talk to you a little bit about our approach to the press”, and duly went on to devote 10 paragraphs, or 1.5 pages of his 10-page speech, condemning the (lowly) ranking of Singapore in the Freedom Press Index.
He used direct comparisons with the war-torn countries of Guinea, Congo and Kenya to illustrate the point of how ludicrous the index must be to rank Singapore below these countries and asks “whether a truly objective assessment will give us such a ranking”. Well, just as the Singapore system is blind to the background of the rich man’s son that can afford him the best private tuition money can buy, so too is the index blind to the socio-economic infrastructure of the countries assessed.
The fact that a more credible report on a specific incident can emanate from these war-torn countries as compared to how information on the escape of Mas Selamat can be so botched up, means that these ‘lowly’ countries deservedly score better and consequently get ranked higher on the index.
Why Singapore Scores Low
Although Reporters Without Borders does not offer a specific justification for Singapore’s score, the good minister should read the methodology and the questionnaire which is easily available on its website (perhaps, he already has?) before launching into any tirade. The 40 questions cover a range of issues with regard to Press Freedom such as:
- Physical Attacks, Imprisonment and Direct Threats
- Indirect Threats, Pressures and Access to Information
- Censorship and Self-Censorship
- Public Media
- Economic, Legal and Administrative Pressure
- Internet and New Media
- Number of Journalists Murdered, Detained, Physically Attacked or Threatened, and Government’s Role in This
- Country Media Data
In contrast to what the Law Minister feels, there is actually nothing to be surprised when a war-torn country may have plenty of violence but none directed at the press (which would give a good score on this index). Similarly, the very socio-political infrastructure here in Singapore would mean that several areas of the questionnaire would elicit negative scores (e.g. self-censorship of mainstream media and public media monopoly).
The index is also specific in its timeframe and covers a 12 month period from 1st September to 31st August, which would further explain why the index for 2008 ranked Singapore 144th with 49 points as compared to its 2009 ‘improved’ position with 45 points. In the period from September 2007 to August 2008, the FEER defamation suit and Gopalan Nair’s detention both occurred, which would have naturally added more points to the score. As luck would have it, no such major incident occurred in the current period which would automatically have resulted in a better score – without any proactive action by the government.
Thus the issue is not whether the index is ‘divorced from reality’ but why Singapore’s media infrastructure puts it in the bottom quarter of the index time and again – a monopoly on media outlets and a culture that allows for self-censorship to be widely practised will ensure that it scores upwards of 40 points every year (which would subsequently keep it in the 100+ range in rankings). Instead of making sweeping judgements that the index is absurd, the government would do well to consider what press freedom really means and look at the rather simple criteria on which it fails.
Simply ignoring what you don’t understand is certainly not a demonstration of good governance.
“Our approach has therefore to [sic] been to ignore the criticisms which make no sense (to us).”
Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Law & Second Minister for Home Affairs
26th October 2009
Further Reading
Questionnaire for compiling the 2009 Press Freedom Index
Related posts:
- Why RSF’s Press Freedom Index is flawed – and why it works
- S’pore press freedom ranked 133rd – MP says this shows “our press remains credible” !
- Singaporean activists mark World Press Freedom Day 2008
- 2007: The year virtual reality shaped reality – A review of the new media landscape in 2007
- Link pay of leaders to happiness index
22 Comments
Here’s an interesting perspective from Cherian George
http://journalism.sg/2009/10/28/why-rsfs-press-freedom-index-is-flawed-–-and-why-it-works/
And I’ve mentioned why a methodology that is all of 2 pages long would leave itself open to questions.
2) tookie on October 31st, 2009 3.41 pm
Here’s an interesting perspective from Cherian George
============================================
Didn’t he write propaganda articles for the government when he was with the Straits Times?
What a joke. Denial of the truth and lambasting it just because it’s not in your favour.
In response to the laughable perspective from dear George, there is simply no need to block out political websites because those parties suck so much (due to the severe lack of talent joining them. who would give up an iron rice bowl for a paper rice bowl in Singapore?) that they are not deemed to be a threat AT ALL.
Debra Soong Chay Bai of the Hong
When ranked 144th and 133rd respectively, which other 1st world ranked poorer?
Anyone knows?
Its not ranked the Poorest among 1st worlds right?
singapre very the solid stedi bom bi bi wans right?
Wht to do? like their masters..all are frogs living in the well!
i know what they should do – sue them!
they’re so good at it anyway…
=P
Such statement is shocking, Zaqy Mohamad is saying that we are always right and we did no wrong regardless of how people think. He is echoing people from the ivory tower that regardless of how heartlanders felt, we don’t give two hoots about it because “we made no mistake”. PAP go eat shit!
2) tookie on October 31st, 2009 3.41 pm
Here’s an interesting perspective from Cherian George
http://journalism.sg/2009/10/28/why-rsfs-press-freedom-index-is-flawed-–-and-why-it-works
I think he should read the methodology better. To the “best of his knowledge” and yet not stating the extent of that knowledge?
His main gripe was “Instead of using a common pool of rigorously trained assessors, it asks respondents within each country to rate that country on various indicators. Their responses help determine where the country ranks.”
I don’t even know how he come up with the point on the lack of ‘common pool of rigorously trained assessors”. It’s just a questionnaire sent to ‘respondents within each country’ and a score attached to the answers given to the questionnaire. What other “inter-coder reliability” is he looking for? With the majority of the questions being yes/no and counts of instances, how subjective can it get? There was only 1 question which asked the respondent to give a rating… and that is the only one that could be subjective.
Looking at his background “Journalist with The Straits Times for 10 years”, I have to wonder if he purposely limited his ‘best of his knowledge’ on the RSF issue.
I think the Law Minister needs to go back to school again. Perhaps to start from the Elementary School first. How to be a Law Minister when such simple analysis and logic also don’t know? Or is he pretending not to know?
I will never trust someone who commits ‘adultery’. Such a person has the tendency to adulterate anything. That is my take. Simple as that.
I don’t have any expert views on such methodology so I won’t comment on that. However, I would suggest that people read some of Cherian’s writing and research pieces before branding him as a propaganda writer just because he was an ST journalist in the past. That method of coming to a conclusion is in itself flawed.
Those who read MSM carefully and with perception (some would call it reading in between the lines) will know that the reports are generally slanted to give a good impression of the powers that be. So be it. The perceptive reader will be able to sieve the wheat from the chaff.
The non-perceptive reader (including those who want to believe the best of the powers-that-be) will accept whatever they read in the MSM.
Hence, there is a need for a free and unshackled media to provide a balanced view for the ordinary man-in-the-street reader. This is not say that the ordinary reader is blind — only that he is not given enough avenues to read a critical analysis of what people like Shanmugam and our other ministers proclaim and whose words are faithfully reproduced in MSM.
We may continue to debate the merit and rigor of the Press Freedom index and such. One point is clear though. The rankings from these international organizations (Reporters without Borders, Freedom House) are but confirmation of what we already witness (sometimes personally), what we already know and what we must do henceforth.
We hope that they will exert greater international pressures to undo the (social) injustice, to right the wrongs in Singapore. However, we owe it to ourselves to pick this up and be prepared to go the distance, even without external aid.
I find it amazing how many things (not the little ones; the BIG Os) can and have gone wrong in such a tiny island state called Singapore. How this government manages to piss off almost everyone at the same time!
When the government curtails our “freedom of expression”, it is really not too worried about naked streakers (a form of expression no less) in Holland Village and the ensuing “public order” disturbance. The spectacle would have caused a greater commotion than any CSJ’s rally.
No, the incredulity and indecency of some of the existing laws has more to do with the prevention of “public embarrassment” than the containment of “public order”. In the Buffetian sense, who is “swimming naked” when the tide runs out? And the tide has run out.
Yes, we need to claw back our “freedom of speech, assembly and association” which was unconstitutionally taken away. We need to demand a Freedom of Information Act. Put on your knuckle dusters; we have a date in the cul de sac!
Not only denial detached.. but justifying an action which is totally against his conscience, unless he hasn’t got one!
I really must say that this is a very professional piece of journalism by Ganga.
So, I hope that what I say may be taken in the spirit that it is being intended, namely, that I’m just nitpicking but only for the purpose of pushing Ganga to greater heights for the future.
The article begins by saying: “Singapore officials seem to have missed the point of the index by erroneously equating it with press quality.”
I actually do think that RSF’s rankings are *ultimately* about press quality; it’s about the quality of information received by the readership/viewership of the media that can affect the quality of the government they elect, if electing of a government is even an option to said readership/viewership to begin with.
That said, RSF’s rankings are still not focussed on the matter of quality but on openess/tarnsparency of media and the expicit role of government in any openess/tarnsparency or lack thereof.
Thus, it would be very appropriate for any government to react to dismal rankings, BUT THEY WOULD DO SO ONLY IF they are guilty of a role in any lack of openess in the media.
Only because the PAP government has in fact reacted to this findings, they are guilty as charged; a government that plays no role in the functioning of media has no obligation to react but to leave the defending of a job badly done to the media themselves.
The thing that riles me about episodes like this is not so much that the PAP government tries to defend its poor standards, because I have already accepted that the PAP is ONLY about low standards, but the *REASONS* they offer in such instances.
It’s always ultimately about how to keep themselves in power, whether it’s Asian values or any other smokescreen to make white people feel guilty that if they don’t understnad that this is about Asian values, then they must be racist.
And white people, especially those who are liberal, are terrified of the charge of racism being made against them. In which case, it becomes a case of “Mission Accomplished” for the PAP in what is ultimately its war of attrition against human rights in Asia.
New York is *the* liberal stronghold in the US, and K. Shanmugam has definitely picked on the ‘right’ audience to terrify with an implied charge of racism.
@ 12) tookie on November 1st, 2009 10.06 am
“I don’t have any expert views on such methodology so I won’t comment on that. However, I would suggest that people read some of Cherian’s writing and research pieces before branding him as a propaganda writer just because he was an ST journalist in the past. That method of coming to a conclusion is in itself flawed. ”
———————————————-
If I’m not mistaken, Cherian George’s brother-in-law is the Minister, Env & Water Resources, as well as Muslim Affairs, and Cherian’s wife, Zubaidah, is a senior staff at the Straits Times.
Before Cherian left ST to pursue his doctoral, and I believe before his marriage, he was castigated by then Minister Wong Kan Seng for his report on Parliamentary proceedings unfavourable to……
Who says they are entitled to publish propaganda unchallenged?
Is there an International Law that protects IBA from being sued by a country?
Was there any wrong in the IBA report?
If so, they should be sued or not?
If not what message does this send out?
If not could such acts be repeated again and again?
Human Rights. So what about human rights? Does Society have a right?
If people have rights, so does the Government of Singapore have rights.
All this Western mentality and attitude towards humanrights. I am a Singaporean
and I have my rights. But I don’t go around screaming about how we are being governed.
‘Divorced from reality’
Allow me to comment on what our law Minister had said in the ‘Today’ paper
dated 27 October, 2009 (page 6 last paragraph) and I quote “This education, in our formative years, has made many of us admirers of many aspects of American
Society, he said. End quote.
Education in the USA.
The system has broken down where they curse and ridicule every aspect of US American Society. They Slander all that is dis-agreeable to them. That there are 400.000.000 individuals with each claiming individual rights.
What right does anybody have to slander another person? Again quoting our Minister for Law Mr. Shanmugam in the same “Today” paper, and I quote “In political arena, too; We have no problems with tough debate, criticism of policies. But…. if untrue statements are made that a person is corrupt or that he lied, or
that he tried to help my family or friends, ther e will be a suit.” End quote.
We are Singapore, and I stand in defence of my government. I am defining myself and I hope that it is clear.
And don’t pull that US American crap on me about everybody is entitled to his opinion. No body asked for mine, and what I have said are the facts.
I refer to the Straits Times report dated 28 Oct 2009.
Mr Shanmugam was reported to have said that Singapore’s low ranking in press freedom is both absurd and divorced from reality. Is Mr Shanmugam man enough to allow International organisations to conduct a referendum or a survey to verify just how true his allegation is?
He questions how people can be unempowered in a modern, open economy. China is a good example. It’s economy is not only open but also one that is very rapidly modernising as well. Yet, the people of China remain firmly gripped by communism. So his question is really quite silly given the living example that clearly demonstrate that it is indeed possible.
Mr Shanmugam implies that it is not possible for a modern, successful, wired and internationally connected city like Singapore to be a repressive state where people’s thoughts are controlled. But thought control happens even in modern and prosperous Japan. Since the end of World War 2, generations of Japanese have been brought up to believe that the Nanking massacre never happened and that the Japanese were the victims rather than the aggressors of the war. So too in Singapore, students have been receiving an education slanted towards the vitures of the government. This mind setting process throughout their formative years hardens quite often into stone for the rest of their lives.
Furthermore, many old folks in Singapore are either uneducated or cannot read English. They are not connected to the Internet but are dependent instead on Chinese or malay or Indian news supplied by virtually state owned newspapers. So despite Singapore being wired internationally, there is a significant proportion of us who aren’t.
Mr Shanmugam states that the government demands the right of reply but that right of reply is not extended to the people. So in that sense, it is true that the media favours the government but not the man on the street.
Mr Shanmugan also says that critics of government policies should avoid personal attacks or that which is untrue. But it was precisely on the 11th Oct 2009 that Minister Mah Bow Tan personally attacked some Singaporeans over application claims. Furthermore, the allegations made by Minister Mah weren’t entirely true either. Is this how things work in Singapore? The govt has the right to make personal attacks and to say things which may only be half true while the people are refrained from doing so?
Mr Shanmugan brushes off Singapore’s low ranking by Reporters Without Borders by implying that since Singapore’s social order is much better than those of Guinea, Kenya, Congo or Venezuela, Singapore’s press freedom must necessarily be better. That is not necessarily true. The law and order in China is much better than Guinea, Kenya, Congo or Venezuela. Ye we all know that China is a communist state that imposes strict controls on the press and what it publishes. So Mr Shanmugam’s argument is simply nonsense. You can have very strict press controls with reasonably good law and order. In this case, the same agent that is enforcing strict law and order is also the one enforcing strict press controls.
So if Mr Shanmugam wishes to question the objectivity of the rankings, it needs to come up with more objective arguments than merely equating law and order with press control.
Can the Press Freedom Index be taken seriously?
It seems that Reporters Without Borders, the organization which drew up the Index, have been taking money from the US Department of State? They also have strong links with the CIA and Western intelligence agencies. See: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1125 and http://www.flonnet.com/fl2507/stories/20080411250713100.htm
With such a reputation, how can we assume their report is unbiased?
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denial, delusional, detached from reality