By Gangasudhan and Ravi Philemon
In a show of scant regard for the intellect of Singaporeans, the Straits Times splashed the authoritative headline “Highest trust level in government” for an article that starts of with “people in Singapore trust the Government here more than the residents of any other country trust their government” and “trust in the Singapore Government was 84 per cent”, followed by a contrast to cement the point – “far higher than the global average of 49 per cent”. The report then reveals that this “survey by US-based PR firm Edelman … polled 200 people in Singapore and a total of 4,875 worldwide”.
Naturally, such outlandish figures that do not fit the ground sentiment aroused our suspicion and the TOC team established the source of this survey to be the 2010 EDELMAN TRUST BAROMETER – An Annual Global Opinion Leaders Study. This survey has been conducted annually by the firm since 2001 and for this particular installment it commissioned the research firm StrategyOne – its subsidiary – to carry out the 25-minute telephone surveys.
The methodology document – all of 109 words – reveals that “all informed publics met the following criteria: college-educated; household income in the top quartile for their age in their country; read or watch business/news media at least several times a week; follow public policy issues in the news at least several times a week”, which means that the 200 persons from Singapore (we are not even certain if they are Singaporeans) were for all intent and purposes, high-income businessmen.
Upon further inspection of the accompanying Executive Summary released by Edelman, it becomes clear that the ‘trust’ they are referring to is along the lines of whether businesses can trust the government to not interfere or disrupt their business operations. So it becomes apparent that is not the ‘people in Singapore’ but the ‘businessmen in Singapore’ who trust the government here more than in any other country.
As the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer website and the documents therein do not refer to Singapore specifically, we are not sure where the reporter might have obtained the Singapore-specific figures from. However, whilst the ST can be proud of having such ‘exclusive information’, a more obvious fact was left out. On page 3 of the Executive Summary, the survey findings include that “the only institution to lose trust around the globe is media. Over the last three years, trust in media has fallen from 48 to 45 percent among older informed publics. With the dispersion of traditional media’s authority and the rise of opinion journalism, trust in the institution as a whole has waned.”
The irony is that the article proves this very statement by employing a misleading slant and omitting pertinent information.
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singapoorium businessmen are kachangputeh kinds…
the days of the mustafar/ngtengfong/simwonghoo are gone for good..when temasek inc start takin over every trades/deals/ to the extends of bakin bread and print cheap silkscreen t-shirts…
the foreigners europeans including the mutli chinese real chinamen millionaires no longer wished to open any factories in singapoor..
for what purposes 1 may inquired? before you think you want to start..
has anybody gone thru the redtapes setup by the respectives governin authorities?
you all mereLEE think jackneos movies are bulls h i t? its 101% real.. i know i been thru that hussle before…if and when i have the means and the funds..i will go either to china or cebu(provided i have the filipinos armed forces guardin my back)..if not possible … that means i will be brinin all my savins to my coffin…………..
~sigh~
Bringing all your savings to the coffin???? Even NTUC is in the undertaking services…
http://www.income.com.sg/restinpeace/rites.asp
one thing for sure, the trust in Straits Times, is very low.
Doing what they did, how do these reporters or editors in Straits Times, feel when they are take their salaries very month. Don’t they feel they are not earning a decent living, betraying their professional ethnics. Shame on them !
They are misleading Singaporeans and are accomplices to political crimes.
PAP is seen as very desperate now because election is drawing near. I can almost hear them BEGGING everyday, thru Straits Times,. to be recognised as credible party. However, the ground sentiments and reactions do not seems to reflect the fake survey result. As usual, who can trust statistic when Lee Hsien Loong said it can be fixed by the govt to make them look good before presenting it to the public. I can say I pity PAP in their desperate attempt in recent weeks to dilute their own guilt for tormenting Singaporeans. However they are not going to get my vote – for sure!!! I am voting alterantive parties at every opportunities avaliable since we have been suffering too long for this moment to bring PAP to justice through people’s power.
Lets give Edelman a chance to refute or clarify the ST report – post this well researched feature to them and ask them if ST’s report was misleading and incorrect. Then their integrity and reputation is at stake. Its really pathetic journalism on ST part that they did not even bother to check the meanings and content of the statistics.
There are statistics and there are statistics. You can see it from a far or really near. I choose to see it from the shoes of the ordinary man who is working to make a better tomorrow for his family, loved one and friends, as for ST they only see it through rose tinted glasses, if you dont know that by now, then you must be a new comer online.
That is why even this recent ESC report doesnt really hit the spot, but look how ST is trying to sell it to all of us? In reality, they just dont have a grasp or any idea of what it really takes to remake Singapore.
http://dotseng.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/can-esc-produce-another-singapore-bill-gates-et-al/
I came across this, it gives a good account of how some of us really see the real world, its not as rosy as what the ST paints it out to be. Thats why, I have long since stopped reading ST. They are just so unreal.
Dear Ganga and Ravi,
Great article! Please give us more.
I like to give my humble suggestion.
As we know, Apathetic People are unlikely regular readers of this blog, as the name implies.
This is an irrefutable truth.
Based on video interviews on TOC, many are apathetic.
How to reach these ? Writings here is great but cannot be read by the apathetics.
Solution : On-the-street interviews to solicit Coments. At the same time, share with them your thoughts and logic on issues. Ask them questions that they cannot answer you. One Change Alley gal said she support Mandatory … but Dont Know Why. Here is where you can come in to enlighten them if not share some truths they may not know.
shtty times is getting inspiration on what to write / spin by reading websites like toc and tr.
they are always following . never leading.
Great job TOC ! I just hoped that some kind sould will write in to ST forum to question on the credibility of the survey, citing what TOC has unearthed.
TOC can use this as case-in-point to educate the naive.
Good work! by researching into the orignal source of information and provide a more balanced view.
ZZZZzzzzzzz….does anyone really think PAP cares or needs to beg? Wake UP! They are NOT afraid. They have many “legal” ways to win. So do I trust the PAP government?…..
YES! YES! YES!
I absolutely and unequivocally TRUST the PAP government;
In return, the vampire PAP government will absolutely and without remorse, THRUST its people through their hearts with a merciless lightning stake and drain them of their blood.
Get real ! Edelman probably wants in on doing business here thru some shady hookups. As for ST….yawn…if they dun suckup, how then to get their salaries and bonuses for these so called bogus journalists!
Yawn…way past my bedtime. Better lock my window & doors and put up GARLIC or the vampire will come tonight.
Oops..forgoten our modern vampiric government sucks blood through electronic means. !!! Yikes >:E
Trust this PAP Government. You must be kidding!
Look at the “new arrivals” brought into our beloved country, by this regime,
whom they called “talents”.
They have messed up our lives and betrayed our trust.
Pui !!! They are defintely not worthy of our Trust and Votes!
when so many have influxed then only i realise the Extent.
when they said welcome ft, i did not realise so many FT, PR, new citizens and property speculators or investors have come in.
Fellow Singaporeans,
Let’s get al our friends and relatives boycott all publications by SPH, including the Straits Times, New Paper and Business Times and donate the money to those homeless families.
cny good time to network and reach out.
all hll breaks lose.
My goodness another Straits Times propaganda
Anyone of us here were included in the survey? btw sample size of 200 should be ‘peanuts’ to them, TRUST them to pat one another’s backs
I thought only 66% “voted’ PAP (or actual 34%). And PAP is government. So, did it ever occur to ST that the 84% focus group could be biased? I mean, talking to groups/people I associates with daily seem give an impression that the actual ground sentiment is quite different. Of course, I didn’t use any surveying methodology to form that impression.
200 people? Is that a sufficient survey size for such a subject? And done over the phone!!!?? Maybe they did 1000 calls and only 200 responded somewhat — I did surveys before — Singaporeans really not so free to give 25 minutes of their time speaking to someone asking questions over the phone. It is definitely doubted that they made 200 calls and 200 responded.
What a joke! My projects had much larger sample sizes back in my poly days~
Really that good?
Then Ask the pigs to start the elections now.
Good job TOC.
I hope that expose’ like this show them that we Singaporeans are not that easily hoodwinked.
ST is fast losing its credibility because of dishonestly/carelessly slanted articles like this.
Thank you for confirming my suspicions when I read that piece on the ST.
I think PAP is in serious trouble. It’s like quicksand…the more u wriggle the deeper u go
and it is also about trust, honesty, self-respect and respecting others truely…except ST seems to have lost all of these over the years with the general poplulation of singapore….
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/trust/
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/honesty/
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/respect/
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Thank you, TOC, for providing us with yet another example of why Singaporean citizens should NOT trust PAP and its 154th mouthpiece.
This is a new hitting-below-the-belt low for MSM journalism in Singapore.
But the question is: do Singaporeans have what it takes to feel pain when somebody punches them below-the-belt like this?
VOTE PROTEST. Prove it.
Do you think we can trust them to say that we trust them.
Quick summary
Sampling size : 200
Household income group : top quartile for their age.
Any statistical student here to enlighten.
Interesting (and yet somewhat unsurprising) that the Straits Times should choose to misappropriate an industry trust barometer and apply some pro-governmental gloss over it. Don’t they know that Singaporeans can now instantaneously fact-check while reading hyperbolic fact-manipulation?
I just hope that healthy questioning of the validity of our print press becomes a habit for more people.
That’s what’s more surprising – in spite of knowing that many readers will be able to tell fact from fiction, they blatantly choose to do it time and again. I think the problem is that the MSM is not accountable to the people in any way – the government has enough money to bankroll the papers and TV even if every single Singaporean stops reading and watching altogether.
I’m really not sure how we can stop this (I guess a change of management is one possibility), but I’m concerned that there are many who are hopelessly reliant on the system and cannot fathom a life without the matrix (i.e. PAP government). Well, I fashion myself to be like Morpheus – and try to keep pushing the truth to set the ‘slaves of the system’ free, hahaha.
As for the statistical manipulation – stats in Singapore (and in business) has today become a parlour trick to impress the uninformed. What is shocking in this case though is the brazen extent to which they have manipulated the whole survey – it’s like a card trick where the we can see the card in the other hand but the magician keeps insisting that the card has disappeared.
Shitty times lacks credibility and they do not have journalists – they only have reporters regurgitating what is told to them or … and hence what can one expect but shit lar