Media Sing-a-lore in Singapore

Media has to distance from Government in Singapore:Expert
BY: Y.Bala Murali Krishna
Panaji,Oct 27-2k6: The Singapore media,with more stringent libel aws, has to distance itself from the government so that the readers ecome main stakeholders in the multi-ethnic society to crve a roper roadmap for its bright future,says a media expert from the South East Asian country.

“Media has changed quite dramatically over the last 10 years and the process is still on.The government knows it has to deliver economic growth and is consciouis of the role of the media which has of late been attracting talented people,” Mr.P.N. Balji, former editor-in-chief and CEO of MediaCorp Press observed.

He was interacting with UNI after after delivering a talk on “Media & Democracy-The Cases of Malaysia and Singapore” as part of the public lecture series organised by the International Centre, Goa, Goa Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the Goa Union of Journalists here today.

Admitting that stringent media laws exist in Singapore and
Malaysia,particularly related to libel, Mr.Balji justified the
ongoing role of the media in supporting the government policies that had been hielding successful economic growth and prosperity to the small country.

“Why should the media assume the role of the opposition when the government is delivering goods,” he argued thus brushing aside the idealistic roles of the media as “constructive opposition and agenda setting” as had been done in highly democratic countries.

Talking about freedom of expression vis-a-vis the stringent libel and press laws,media control common in both the countries,the former CEO of one of Singapore’s leading commuter papers Today said even the top ministerial functionaries had to talk with utmost caution in even addressing public meetings lest they face music.

The end of the cold war had brought a revolution in the Internet world over and more so in the two countries with youth aspiring for electronic papers, thus bringing about a radical change in the editorials and content and formats of the newspapers in both the countries.

“Our newspapers are now engaged in narrowcasting exercise, catering particularly to specialised segments such as women,youth,blue collar workers and children unlike in the past with a business model for survival,” he said.

The Straits Time newspaper with a circulation of 400,000 copies and 1.3 million readership was now a changed lot and had become a more reader friendly by adopting different business models after the ingression of the internet in Singapore,he said.

Even the “free newspapers” like Today that emerged from the Internet impact started netting 5 million Singapore dollar profit these days even as most of the papers like the New Straits Times,Barita Haryan were run under the “sophisticated control” of government companies.

But the societies these days had been experiencing a different
situation with influx of foreigners in both the countries, particularly in pro-US Singapore and emergence of 3G
syndrome of “girls,gays and grays who find a sense of vacuum”.

In this scenario, most of the youth who left out of Singapore did not like to go back even as the economy had been growing with contribution from outside.

Girls donot like to marry and beget children while the gays with their own exclusive pubs are growing with the ainstream media not taking cognizance of them and the grays with a sense of vacuum not caring for Singapore.

These 3G’s have become a big pressure groups in Singapore causing concern for all even as the foreign comunities who constitute 3 million out of 7 million population hardly ix among themselves for various reasons, he bemoaned.

He also expressed concern that even the foreign talent (expatriates including Indians)does not like to “stay” in Singapore after serving there for long.

Another major concern was “threat of terrorism” in Singapore as it had become the biggest avowed “lackey” of the US government consistently with not hesitating to carve out a military base for the US,while the tiny nations had become global villages these days,he added.

“Though their economies had been growing in scale,can Singapore and Malaysia avoid thinking and questioning societies and decide the type of democracy in 10 years to come?” Mr.Balji asked.//EOM//

AMIC Colloquium favours RTI Act for South Asia

 
Experts for sensitising media on human rights, training, networking for a better South Asia

BY Y Bala Murali Krishna

Panaji, Oct 15(2k6) South Asian media experts have favoured training of journalists on various aspects of human rights, both in-house and in mass communications institutes, besides sensitising the editors on the need for renewed reporting on the sensitive issue.
”This would help sensitize the media on reporting about
conflicts in the society with a human touch,besides promoting
building up of regional networks for media at risk in covering the issues,”the experts opined.
This is one of the recommendations the 3-day South Asia Media colloquium-2006 concluded here today. It was organised jointly by the prestigious Asian Media Information and Communications Centre (AMIC-India), FriedrichEbert Stiftung(Germany) and International Centre-Goa.
More than 40 specialists including those from Bangladesh, Nepal, akistan and Srilanka besides representatives of different media units from India participated in the colloquium.

The group that discussed on safeguarding human rights by media had also called for strengthening partnerships by enabling a dialogue between the media and the civil society to understand each other in needs and constraints.

It had also reitereated the need for widening the constituency base from which the media practitioners are dawn, and sought encouraging Dalit or tribal Journalists to voice the situation of the community or seek to bridge the gap.
Another group that debated on ”Empowerment of Women: Are Media an Aid or Impediment?” under the chairmanship of Pakistan’s resident editor of The Post Mr Nusrat Javeed, asked the journalism schools to monitor editorial content, both news and entertainment slots to judge how women and women issues had been portrayed.

Apart from forwarding their findings to relevant media units and creating follow up cells, the media establishments should hold in-house and mandatory sessions on gender sensitisation besides drawing a code of conduct on covering gender issues.
The group had further favoured introduction of internship
programmes for young women journalists to develop professional skills and capacity building.
The group on ”Portraying Poverty: Are Media Failing the Poor?” chaired by Inam Ahmed (Bangladesh), said media were not failing the poor, but they certainly had not done enough to their rescue.

”Hence the media should now seriously think of diverting its
manpower and money from lighter aspects of the society (fashion, entertainment, sports) to serious aspects like poverty,” it said.

Each media house should appoint at least one full time reporter covering development programmes and issues of the poor. The course of media coverage should cease to be event-based. It should be guided by bottom-top approach, not the reverse.
Apart from training media persons on poverty coverage, a
platform be created for South Asia journalists for poverty discourse and training to help better coverage, the group recommended.

The group that discussed the Right to Information-vis-a-the role of the media under the chairmanship of former director of the press institute of India Ajit Bhattacharjea, pleaded for incorporating the Right to Information in respective constititions as a fundamental
right.

Asking all countries of South Asia to enable their citizens to
get proper access to Information,the experts urged the Government of India not to amend the RTI 2005. Rather, it should come forward to make it more vibrant to make easy and better access to information,it said.

The experts asked all the media institutions and journalists of outh Asia to recognize the power of the RTI. They should take it as their own issue and come forward to sensitise the society for greater transparency.

Journalists should utilize the Act for obtaining the news and the media educational institutions should include the Right to
Information as an exclusive paper and conduct research on related issues.

Various kinds of research should be conducted and promoted on the status of the access to information in South Asian countries and the journalists be trained regarding the concept of transparency and uses of RTI.

The group that discussed about the ”Media Scene: Increasing Competition and Declining Standards?” headed by NDTV journalist Vinod Dua, felt the need for training of journalists for skill development and capacity building.
”Training may be arranged on specialized areas and issues to be reported. To upgrade the overall standard of journalism, training can be organised on content – its selection prioritization and presentation, so that an atmosphere of value based journalism can continue in the era of market driven media,” it said.

Other recommendations included differentiating Media from the Press and Journalism, campaigning for media awareness/ literacy/education, revival of development journalism, promotion of the community press, increase in use of new media outlets/ ICT (internet/ blog etc.) and government support for software development for
journalism in regional language before it is too late.

The also said the Journalists – irrespective of the media – be encouraged by management to go round the country atleast for 2 weeks in a year without the press tag and facilities to understand the real India.
Launching of a news feature syndicate by AIIMC or any other agency to provide development stories to provincial/district level publications besides preparing a development journalism manual to help the new entrants, initiating active media literacy programmes in all the South Asian countries, giving importance to development-related films and their exchange amongst journalists from South Asian countries were other recommendations.

Earlier, Mr Ajit Bhattacharjea released a reporters’ handbook on ‘Media and Law” edited by Times of India’s senior legal correspondent Ms Swati Deshpande in presence of AMIC chairman Vijay Menon and FES senior media advisor Mr Rajeswar Dyal and ICG director M E Rajaretnam. The book was published by the AMIC-India and the UNESCO.//EOM//