The media - Truth is stranger than fiction

Below are a few paragraphs from the statestimesreview ridiculing the top officials of The Straits Times for lying in an open hearing. I as usual disagree with thestatestimes for their criticisms of the most respectable and serious and always reporting the truth newspaper in Singapore. I also disagree with their low ranking for credibility at 151st in the world. Of course you are free to disagree with me and my biased opinion. I would not be offended as I also have very thick skin. I would not demand an apology, I swear.

'Openly lying at the Select Committee’s hearing, Singapore’s state media claimed that they are “serious journalism” and independent from the ruling party’s influence.

Singapore’s state media, comprising of Mediacorp and Singapore’s Press Holdings, are collectively ranked 151st in the world for credibility. The shameful ranking puts Singapore media among the third world nations like Iraq and North Korea, but the editors representing the two propaganda state media, senior editors of Mediacorp and editor of Straits Times, protested insisting they are not biased:

“Over the last five, 10 years we’ve tried extremely hard to be fair, balanced and objective because we see our role as not trying to play up one party or the other, but to give our readers as much information as they can to make decisions for themselves. If we were biased, we would be clearly called out on social media. It would backfire and affect our credibility, so we wouldn’t be inclined to do that. I don’t think it does anybody any service if we tried to … it would be a disservice to our readers, a disservice to our journalists, and ultimately I think a disservice to Singapore.”
The propagandists also said that the internet is the reason why trust in the mainstream media has fallen, and called for the government to impose more censorship on the internet “to level the playing field with the mainstream media”:'

I know that it is very difficult to dispute the poor rankings of international bodies on anything but only to agree with them when the rankings are good. It is only human to hear the good stuff, read the good stuff. I just dunno how an international body could give The Straits Times such a low ranking when it is as reputable as the New York Times, the Washington Post etc as it always carried their unbiased, objective and well researched political western propaganda to attack, ridicule and rubbish any country that is being demonished by the American Empire. See how many pages were given to western journalists to write and condemn Asian countries from the western perspectives. Somehoe Singapore could not produce any good journalist to write news from our own perspective and interest of Asians. But these are foreign news and not the fault of the paper. They never write them, maybe even have to pay to have the right to publish these western fake news.  Oops, they are alternative news from the West, not fake.

A good point to note is that for the last 5 or 10 years The Straits Times have been trying extremely hard to be fair, balanced and objective in reporting local news. Never mind what they were doing before the last 5 or 10 years. Maybe then it was easier to report fair, balanced and objective news or they were reporting something else. They could not be reporting unfair, unbalanced and unobjective news right? Come to think of it, should it not be a natural thing, a moral thing, a thing of honour, to be reporting fair, balanced and objective news? Is this not the responsibility and purpose of a news media?

Anyway, if they have to try extremely hard, they must have good reasons to work extremely hard just to be fair, balanced and objective. Not sure what or who is making them working so hard when it should be second nature, the right thing to do.  Telling the truth is so easy. Every child can do that without any effort. On this ground I think we should be very appreciative of them for telling us their problem without having to say it. This is the best honourable journalists could say or do under the circumstances.

Let's believe in the honour and fairness of our journalists for giving us so respectable unbiased news, not fake news, all these 5 or 10 years under extremely difficult conditions. Let's not believe in their lowly 151st world ranking. And thestatestimesreview should not criticise them so unfairly.

As they said, wait till you are wearing the shoes or be in their position, only then would you understand their hardship and difficulties. Whatever they are saying or not saying, and confessing or not confessing, I like.