TR EMERITUS

By Lim Siow Kuan, Deputy Chief Editor and Malaysian Correspondent Last year at this time, Democratic Party Presidential nominee Hilliary Clinton was leading Barack Obama by nearly 20 points in some polls. She was the anointed heir of the Democratic Party, a scion of the Clinton dynasty backed by powerful connections in the party and oligarchs from the corporate world. Yet she lost the primary to a first term senator from Illinois who raised more than 60% of his campaign funds from small donors. The Malaysian government which has been at odds with the the country's growing cyber-dissidents, bloggers and netizens was forced to admit its mistake of ignoring the new media, leading to a poor showing in the last election which saw the rejuvenated opposition won an unprecedented 5 states and 82 seats in Parliament, thereby denying the Barisan Nasional its customary two-third majority. Will Singapore's PAP and its media be scratching their heads too if they lose the next general election ? The young has always been at the forefront of change throughout the world. Fired up by a pristine idealism and passion for civil liberty, social justice and human rights, they will go to great lengths and sometimes sacrifices to fulfil their aspirations. We see them in action during the 1988 Burmese uprising against General Ne Win's ruthless military junta leading to the incarceration of over 2000 college and university students, many of them the creame la crop of the improverished Southeast Asian country. A year later, students from Qinghua and Beijing Universities staged a massive protest against China's Communist Party in front of Tiananmen square. The photo of a young student standing in front of a tank in stark defiance remained deeply etched in our collective consciousness even nearly after two decades and today, Hong Kong still conducts a yearly candle-night vigil to commemorate those who lost their lives during the Tiananmen incident. The mainstream media will never understand why, in spite of their vast resources, superior technology and supposedly well trained journalists, they are struggling for readership with a new media which only came into existence a decade ago. A journalist friend of mine from the New Straits Times (Malaysia's major English daily) once lamented to me that she simply cannot fathom why Malaysian youth prefer to read the 'half-baked junk' on Raja Petra's Malaysia Today and the poorly homemade videos on the Malaysiakini TV portal instead of the mainstream media. "We are fighting a losing battle and we don't know why", she remarked in exasperation. "Are we becoming a nation of gossip-mongers ? Any rubbish which is published by the new media is worshipped as the gospel truth while the real stuff we wrote based on hard facts are dismissed as government propaganda !" The Malaysian media has a real credibility issue and you only need to look at its ranking on the World Press Freedom Index conducted yearly by the international media watchdog, Reporters Sans Frontieres to know why. The new media is perceived by the younger generation to have more credibility than the mainstream media because it is not owned by anybody and does not have to account to any third parties.  The beauty of it lies in the fact that it has no vested interests, motives or agendas. A video clip posted by an annonymous netizen on Youtube can be put up on any blog whose link can in turn be disseminated throughout cyberspace via emails, forums and facebook. In a short instance, the entire nation will have known the news long before the mainstream media. During the March elections, few Malaysians below the age of 30 bothered to read the newspapers or watch TV3 for election news. They take in wholesale whatever is reported on the internet and regurgitated in full back to their parents back in the kampungs: "Mama, please don't believe in the crap reported by the mainstream media. This is the truth. Now listen to me and vote for the opposition". Even if you are a fervent hardcore UMNO member, will you listen to your son or the Prime Minister ? That's why Barisan lost the Permatang-Pauh by-election to Anwar by an increased margin because while they are trying to fix him with the sodomy case, the medical report of his accuser Saiful was circulating throughout cyberspace for all to see. With a rapid changing electoral demographics, Singapore's PAP may have a tough run in the next general election. From my observations during my five years in Singapore, the PAP draws its core support from the middle class working adults, white-collar professionals and the silver-haired retirees. The younger generation born after 1965 has little affinity or love for the PAP. Malaysia will see 2 million new voters in the next general election in which the nail on Barisan Nasional's coffin will finally be hit. Even if it is not booted out from government, more states are expected to fall into the hands of Anwar's Pakatan Rakyat coalition. Najib Razak will soon find himself replacing Abdullah Badawi as Malaysia's shortest-lived Prime Minister. In a recent poll the Wayangparty Club conducted on our blog here, over 90% of 200 readers indicate they will give their vote to the opposition if an election is held now. Does this reflect the real sentiment on the ground ? Malaysia Today posted a similar poll a week before the March elections and 98% voted in support for the opposition. Of course Barisan politicians laughed the poll result off. As the electoral results showed, the truth is somewhere in between. The opposition did not garner a whooping 98%, but it did manage to win the popular vote on the Peninsula, a first in the history of Malaysia. If the anti-establishment sentiment continue to be prevalent amongst Singapore's young voters, we will expect the popular vote of the PAP to see a steady decline in the next few elections. Unless the PAP revamp itself and start to harness the energy of the young and the new media, the possibility of a wind of change sweeping them out of power remains very real.  Read More →

By Eugene Yeo, Senior writer Since we publish the phone interview of Mr Chua Sheng Yang, many readers wrote in to lambast Mr Chua for not checking his facts before submitting the article and The Straits Times for not proof-reading it before publishing. Some have questioned the authencity of the interview and challenge us to reveal Mr Chua's personal details. Let me set the record straight once and for all. The Wayangparty Club will never publish anything without substantial evidence and we do not make up stories just to increase our readership. We vow to keep the contacts of our interviewees, readers and informers STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. We delete their emails at the end of the day once our journalistic purpose is served. You can trust us to keep your identity a secret. Mr Chua claimed during the interview that he has nothing personal against Mr Tan Kin Lian which is in stark contrast to the vindictive style of his letter to ST Forum. Did Straits Times deliberately omit certain portions or make some changes to Mr Chua's letter without his knowledge so as to cast Mr Tan in a bad light ? Even Mr Chua himself admit that he did not know much about the minibond fiasco and obtained his information "bits and pieces" from the mainstream media. Did Straits Times call up Mr Chua to verify his allegations against Mr Tan or check up the facts before publishing his letter which is potentially defamatory in nature ? By publishing Mr Chua's letter in its original form, The Straits Times has betrayed its hideous motives of casting aspersions on Mr Tan Kin Lian's character. I am most appalled and flabbergasted by the editorial "standards" of The Straits Times, if there are any in the first place. Being a major national English daily with a large readership, one would expect the articles published by The Straits Times to be fair, objective and balanced. The Straits Times Forum is a place which allows the views of ordinary citizens to be heard and should not be abused as a platform to launch personal attacks or unfounded allegations on one another. Granted that Mr Chua had no personal vendetta against Mr Tan, but his letter should not be published in the first place at all. Whoever publishes Mr Chua's article has done Mr Tan a great disservice and he or she should apologize to him for the gross negligence and oversight. We know that the establishment has been feeling uncomfortable over Mr Tan holding fortnightly minibond rallies at Hong Lim Park which has seen an increasing crowd in spite of the ministers' repeated exhortations to the investors to follow proper channel. In spite of its reservations, the establishment has refrained from rebutting Mr Tan Kin Lian so far out of fear of creating a backlash against them from the investors who have grown to adored Mr Tan as a national hero of sort. Is this the beginning of concerted smear campaign against Mr Tan to dilute his influence and popularity ? The Straits Times, being a mouthpiece of the establishment, cannot absolve itself from blame by making use of Mr Chua's "knife" to "stab" Mr Tan in his back ? If you have noticed, the mainstream media initially did not bother to cover Mr Tan's minibond rallies at all till the new media represented mainly by The Online Citizen and The Wayangparty Club started publishing reports on it. This force them to change their previously one-sided stance in support of the banks to one which is slightly more balanced and objective. Together, we can exert indirect pressure on the mainstream media to refrain from publishing more hogwash, lies and half-truths. In today's world, the mainstream media no longer have the monopoly of information. SPH's readership will continue to drop unless they stop being a propaganda machine of the government.  Read More →

By Choo Zheng Xi, Chief Editor, The Online Citizen Minister of State for National Development Ms Grace Fu stated in Parliament that the original rationale of the Town Council (TC) scheme was to ‘devolve’ responsibilities such as financial accountability to individual MPs. "Devolution" is a term used to describe giving local government more autonomy. It is often used to describe the degree of self-government the United Kingdom permits Scotland, Northern Island and Wales. In a country as small as Singapore’s, has "devolution" become a euphemism for passing the buck of safeguarding $1bn worth of Singaporean money to TC managers? A government that brands the country "Singapore Inc" can afford to take a page from corporate best practice. Sadly, the reality is that the level of TC probity is appalling. In a company, the finance committee of the board of directors will seek out professional advice before making an investment. Unless authority is granted to make the investment, it has to report back to the full board for approval. The company’s shareholders are also allowed to grill the board on the state of these investments in an annual general meeting (AGM). Read rest of article here  Read More →