Re-press-ion

Inconceivably, Singapore drops even further in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index which is released annually from Reporters Without Borders.

As the report states, Singapore “slipped six places because of new legal action by the government against foreign media” which initially I thought was a reference to the recent Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) shenanigans, which has seen FEER banned from the land. If you're unfamiliar with the case then it's worth heading to the FEER website where they're hosting every lick of correspondence between MICA, various legal eagles and themselves – all of which constitutes a most entertaining read.

Oddly, it isn't. The Index focuses “solely on events between 1 September 2005 and 1 September 2006. It does not look at human rights violations in general, just press freedom violations.” So while the IMF/World Bank shenanigans most assuredly make the list, the FEER saga does not.

Of course this is just one instance, and it only helped Singapore drop six countries down the list. Coming 140^th is absolutely nothing to crow about, but 146^nd is worse. Especially when you consider there are 168 countries on the list, and that places like China, North Korea and Cuba fill the bottom. Turkmenistan ranks second last, for general press oppression, but propelled down the list mainly for the torture killing of a journalist there earlier this year.

Considering that, we are fairly blessed as journalists here, but for a supposedly booming and progressive country like ours to be ranked 146^th it's a little, well, embarrassing.

The ranking of 146 puts us just ahead of such freedom-loving societies as Russia (where incidentally a journalist was executed Mafia-style in previous weeks) and a mere eight countries ahead of Iraq.

So who has better press freedoms than us?

Kenya, Kenya for the love of god is ranked 118! In May this year government forces stormed the office of the Standard newspaper and their television station, burning thousands of copies of the paper, taking the station off the air, and arresting swathes of journalists. Even journos in Kazakhstan and Somalia are having a better time of it, apparently. Our neighbour to the north (and south), Malaysia, ranks 92^nd and the Philippines, where seven journalists were murdered last year, ranks a much zestier 142^nd.

Out of all of Southeast Asia, only Vietnam, Laos and Burma rank lower, but that's hardly surprising.

The meritocracy of mediocrity

Repression of media leads to a terrible problem, and that's that a non-critical partisan media is terribly, terrible stale in everything it produces.

It's an open secret that the media here is non-critical of the government, and while to me an outsider I find this a horrendous abuse, it's the way this censorship has permeated the entire culture of journalism beyond the political arena that mostly damns the Singaporean media industry. The government doesn't really need to crack their whip much – the rest just runs under its own momentum and the need to censor spreads into all nooks and crannies.

This self-censorship permeates the entire industry, regardless of what media you work for, regardless of who or what you write for, and it results in some of the blandest and most flavourless reading imaginable. Not too critical, overwhelming favourable, and unlike Goldilocks the result is far from being “just right”.

This “everything's rosy” gloss on everything tends to make for amazingly dull reading, and it makes you a terribly dull journalist. Yes, you! Always walking the middle road, never branching out. When there's juicy scandal reported it's never anything truly interesting, but it's manufactured bullshit with scant interest to the average reader. It's the same with things that are hyped (do we really need six stories in six consecutive days telling us how Singaporeans are losing their minds over the new SPH Buzz kiosks?)

Pick up an alternative to the local papers and see what's really happening in the world and in Singapore. Great starting points would be the Bangkok Post, International Herald Tribune, the Asian Wall Street Journal and the South China Morning Post. For magazines just pick up a foreign edition of a local magazine, or a foreign mag that deals with the same topic.

The quality is there, where in Singapore it is sorely lacking. It's an entire industry that supposedly runs as a meritocracy, yet pumps out mediocrity. In journalism here, it seems that near enough is good enough. Unfortunately it's the Singaporean way to meekly accept this as just being the 'way is it is'. I do the same when friends ask me about it – although for me it's less apologetic and more incredulous, but the response is the same – that's just the way things are done here.

And the people accept it...because there's no alternative. I dream of the day when we no longer see the ridiculous proclamations that the Straits Times is “Number One!”, when they are the only one. Hell, it would be awesome if there was an alternative paper. I'm not suggesting that it be a 'free' paper, but maybe just one that cuts down on the fluff and makes the ST actually work for its ad-dollars and its circulation.

But you and I know that that is never, ever going to happen. Not while everything's rosy. Not while coups are most certainly not created in neighbouring countries by government interests. Not while billions of CPF dollars are not lost on share prices alone by the same interests. Not while the Singaporean machine keeps chugging along without a hitch.

And for all you journos out there, why risk your career by rocking the boat? Maintain your course, think nothing, act on nothing, you're doing a bang-up job already.