Singapore's print media at the crossroads...

Media monopoly and draconian laws continue in Singapore and carrying on in this way could mean an eventual demise of the print newspaper industry.

LOOKING back, it sounds a little silly but the Government once used to punish “misbehaving” newspapers by withholding their right to cover press conferences.

With modern thinking, it is only too easy now to sniff at this form of enforcing journalistic cooperation as self-defeating.

But in those bad old days, it was very real.

When it happened, the hapless journalists could merely shrug and ask each other: Who are they trying to punish – the punisher or the “punishee”?

That was in the 70s when Lee Kuan Yew saw himself besieged by enemies everywhere, real or imagined. More...

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