Role of state media in making SG leaders appear better
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http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/11/25/role-of-state-media-in-making-singapore-leaders-appear-better-than-they-are-part-1/
Role of state media in making Singapore leaders appear better than they are (Part 1)
November 25, 2009 by Our Correspondent
Filed under OpinionOPINION
In a recent study released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), over 90 per cent of Singaporeans expressed confidence in the capability and integrity of their leaders, more so than any other developed country in the world.
Are our leaders really that great or is it merely a mirage conjured by years of relentless state-sponsored propaganda via the mainstream media such that Singaporeans can no longer distinguish the truth from the myths?
Joseph Goebbels, the spin doctor of Nazi Germany once said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The brand name of the PAP and the public image of its leaders is cultivated, nurtured and promoted thoughtfully and assiduously over the last 4 decades by the state media.
The three central tenets or myths which underlie the imaginary invincibility of the PAP are:
1. PAP ministers are the best talent that Singapore can find.
2. As such, they deserve the highest salaries in the world since they can earn much more in the private sector.
3. They are incapable of making the slightest mistake.
The above three blatant lies would have been exposed and debunked a long time ago if not for the Singapore media which continues to pull a wool over the eyes of Singaporeans.
During the 2006 elections, Prime Minister Lee admitted publicly that not all of the PAP’s slate of fresh faces were his first choice as many potential candidates refused to stand for elections which implies that the current batch of ministers and MPs are not necessarily the best talents in Singapore.
Singapore’s ministers are grossly overpaid to govern a tiny island state of only 700sqkm2 in size.
No amount of reasoning or rationalizing can explain why the Singapore Prime Minister is paid more than 5 times the annual salary of the U.S. President.
The oft-repeated argument that the ministers would have made a lot more money in the private sector does not make any sense.
Mr Yeo Cheow Tong, a former minister, is earning no more than $30,000 a month as a director at Lippo group now.
Dr Yaacob Ibrahim probably earned around $10,000 to $15,000 a month as a NUS professor before he became a minister. He now earns more than $150,000 a month.
Despite their high pay, Singapore ministers are capable of the most juvenile and atrocious mistakes such as allowing a limping terrorist to escape from a detention center and evading captors for 4 days before swimming across the Straits of Johor, failing to increase the supply of HDB flats in the face of massive immigration leading to sky-rocketing prices today and causing two unnecessary deaths from food poisoning due to negligence.
Yet no matter what mistakes they make, the mainstream media will always manage to spin the story in such a way to exonerate the ministers from blame which explains why nobody ever bother to apologize to the public because doing so is tantamount to admitting one’s mistake and being the highest paid ministers in the world, they cannot afford to reveal their flaws or they can’t justify their astronomical pay anymore.
And why must the ministers be paid so highly? Because under the PAP system which ensures power remains in the hands of a few, it is difficult to attract people who are both talented and loyal at the same time to join politics.
In a healthy, functioning and developed democracy, the media is supposed to act as a watchdog of the government.
The only way for the people to assess the performance of the government objectively and accurately is through the media.
There are no avenues for them to find out the mistakes made by the government if the media does not highlight them.
In Singapore, the media has become the “lapdog” of the government instead of a watchdog.
Its role has been subverted to ensure that one political party remains entrenched firmly in the system forever at the exclusion of all others.
The state media employs three main methods to achieve these aims:
1. Selective reporting.
2. Spinning.
3. Obfuscation.
The reports carried by the Singapore media are almost always one-sided and skewed to the side of the government.
More than often, the media will report only what the government wants the people to know and choose to omit other information which will make them look bad or lousy.
For example, the mainstream media gave extensive publicity to Singapore’s third-place ranking by Transparency International, but not to international rankings which put Singapore in a bad light such as its dismal 133th ranking on the World Press Freedom Index by Reporters without Borders.
Spins are almost always added in the articles to generate a favorable impression of the subject in the minds of the readers.
MM Lee admitted recently that he made a mistake in Singapore’s education policy, but the news articles were deliberately spun in such a way to make him appeared as a magnanimous leader who have no qualms admitting his faults.
There was no mention made of his many other mistakes made in the course of his political career with serious cost to both the nation and its citizens.
When all else fails, the media will resort to throwing smoke bombs to divert public attention from the issue at stake.
The KKH medication error was simply attributed to the design flaws of the two infusion pumps instead of inadequacies within the system itself.
The Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan denied all responsibility by cleverly dwelling on the “magnanimity” of the patients to forgive the two pharmacists involved to obfuscate the real issue at stake which is the safety and reliability of SIngapore’s public healthcare system.
In the second part of the article, we shall examine the 5 common ways in which the media helps to portray Singapore leaders as much better than they really are.
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Common knowledge.....lol.....
My condolences.......
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part 2 is out
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SO everyone admits that Tony Tan is not doing a good job in his area of expertise? If it is so easy, any Tom, Dick or Harry can go take over.
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Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
SO everyone admits that Tony Tan is not doing a good job in his area of expertise? If it is so easy, any Tom, Dick or Harry can go take over.
Where has the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" been for the last 52 years ?
Has the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" just arrived from its fantasy flight, to learn only now that Harry had taken over since 1957 ?
Tommy could have sat in Harry's place - if Harry had put more trust in him, instead of sending him to the UN - so that Tommy's complex mind does not undermine the worthless legislations that Harry had hurriedly pushed through a rubber-stamping Parliament controlled by Harry.
As for Dickie - it remains at the disposal of the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" - when it will decide to have enough of its need to suck on the "dickie", and let Dickie out from its mouth to allow Dickie to show its true color and greatness.
About Tony Tan - how did the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" make such an inference to come to its stupendous unexpressed conclusion ?
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Originally posted by Atobe:
Where has the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" been for the last 52 years ?
Has the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" just arrived from its fantasy flight, to learn only now that Harry had taken over since 1957 ?
Tommy could have sat in Harry's place - if Harry had put more trust in him, instead of sending him to the UN - so that Tommy's complex mind does not undermine the worthless legislations that Harry had hurriedly pushed through a rubber-stamping Parliament controlled by Harry.
As for Dickie - it remains at the disposal of the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" - when it will decide to have enough of its need to suck on the "dickie", and let Dickie out from its mouth to allow Dickie to show its true color and greatness.
About Tony Tan - how did the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" make such an inference to come to its stupendous unexpressed conclusion ?
No, but you have been sucking on Chee Soon Juan's little Dickie for the past 52 years and choosing not to do anything to get the gorillas in white out of power.
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Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
No, but you have been sucking on Chee Soon Juan's little Dickie for the past 52 years and choosing not to do anything to get the gorillas in white out of power.
We can certainly count on the opinion of a pathetic "zwei-siao-Hog" struck with the mid-term "men-o-pausal" syndrome.Sadly symptomatic memory lapses is part of the syndrome.
Its memory will fail momentarily, or persist through two months and more, and will accidentally recall back issues - that it had paused to let itself crinkle for the duration - to let fly with its pent up frustrations of its aging "zwei-siao" unaccomplished Life.
Part of its men-o-pause symptoms will include short temper, intolerance, impatience, foul mouth, incontinence, and impotence.
Obviously, the "zwei-siao-Hog" must have been undergoing hormone replacement therapy - which explains for its squeakly temper, highly strung impatience, and "into your face" attitude as it struts around deluded as a superior "pseudo-Bavarian HOG".
Is the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" still mixed up with the Tommies and the Tommy who is dirty Old Harry's mate ?
One thing is for sure, is that the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" will never mix up Dickie with anyone, as CSJ's dickie is always rolling in its mouth - night and day.
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Originally posted by Atobe:
We can certainly count on the opinion of a pathetic "zwei-siao-Hog" struck with the mid-term "men-o-pausal" syndrome.Sadly symptomatic memory lapses is part of the syndrome.
Its memory will fail momentarily, or persist through two months and more, and will accidentally recall back issues - that it had paused to let itself crinkle for the duration - to let fly with its pent up frustrations of its aging "zwei-siao" unaccomplished Life.
Part of its men-o-pause symptoms will include short temper, intolerance, impatience, foul mouth, incontinence, and impotence.
Obviously, the "zwei-siao-Hog" must have been undergoing hormone replacement therapy - which explains for its squeakly temper, highly strung impatience, and "into your face" attitude as it struts around deluded as a superior "pseudo-Bavarian HOG".
Is the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" still mixed up with the Tommies and the Tommy who is dirty Old Harry's mate ?
One thing is for sure, is that the "zwei-siao-pseudo-Bavarian-Hog" will never mix up Dickie with anyone, as CSJ's dickie is always rolling in its mouth - night and day.
You have been sucking on CSJ's little Dickie for most of your useless life and having Harry Lee's little Dickie in your anus most of your life that you forget about the sufferings of the common people. -
2 ugly old ducklings quarrelling, what a blessing!!!
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Originally posted by Herzog_Zwei:
You have been sucking on CSJ's little Dickie for most of your useless life and having Harry Lee's little Dickie in your anus most of your life that you forget about the sufferings of the common people.
The expert opinion of the resident "zwei-siao-HOG" must have been based on its own intimate experience with being mistreated from all directions.How else could it have reached its grand "zwei-siao" status as a HOG ?
Did the "zwei-siao-HOG" suffered so much at the hands of dirty old Harry that it had to grit on its little finger to endure the suffering ?
Perhaps the "zwei-siao" little finger was not enough and it had to delude itself that it is chewing on CSJ's tormented dickie - only to find out that it is too little to endure the sufferings for the good of the common people ?
It is simply pathetic that the "zwei-siao-HOG" will spite CSJ, as much as it spite dirty old Harry, and Tommy included, and of course a whole host of participants in this Speaker's Corner that it cannot tolerate and find problems with.
Now, does this not have similarities with the ‘inside story’ in the other thread - ‘Govt failed to create wealth for the GEN Y ?’
Was it not the ‘inside story’ who found that "SGforums (is) where the dumbest people in SG converge" ?
The ‘inside story’ may well be part of the "zwei-siao-plot" being uncovered, which leads to a flurry of old threads being dredged up from three months past.
All these vile acts were done in the typical petty acts of "arrogant petulance with a 'zwei-siao' insolent attitude" displayed in a kid possessing "an amoebic IQ that failed to grow with the seeds left in some animal womb".
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Originally posted by angel7030:
2 ugly old ducklings quarrelling, what a blessing!!!
It had to be a blessing for the Taiwanese 'hum' to absorb the attention given to this thread, so as to allow the Tawinese 'hum' to fullfill its required orgasmic needs of an "Attention Seeking Whore". -
It is not surprising. Most mass media in the world do that for their governments. Even in US, before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, practically all the mass media supported based on false WMD. The only differrence, is the degree of pro-govt by the mass media in each country.
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So 90% of Singaporean are delusional thank to false and misleading press. This lky cares very much for his and his regime image. This is the person who jailed innocent and kill innocents.
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If he, Mr Lee Kuan Yew can make 90% of Singapore to be delusionists, do you he is clever or not? I think if can do that, he is God.
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But you can't really blame the media. Any paper or magazine that reports the truth will be sued or shut down and its reporters also sued and/or jailed.