The Singapore Herald

[HTOLAS]

All the talk about the role of MSM in Singapore during the by-elections has brought back sad memories of the brief flowering of press autonomy that was The Singapore Herald. The SH ran for a year before being shut down by the PAPzis who accused them of taking part in 'black operations'.

What troubles me about this episode is that so little of it is in the memory of Singaporeans. Even google does not yield much information! So, I call on bros here to share their memories (if any) of The Singapore Herald. Better still, if you have copies tucked away somewhere, I'd be grateful if you could get them scanned and displayed here.

 

[salmon]

thanks for sharing. i didn't know we had press autonomy - albeit briefly. those in the know: who were its operators? are they still alive?

 

[salmon]

oh, ok, found this:

http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/42176.html

thanks for starting this thread!

 

[HTOLAS]

I saw that too, thanks. Here is an idea of why the PAPzis hated it so much:

oh, ok, found this:

http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/42176.html

thanks for starting this thread!

 

[kingrant]

You can read The Media Enthralled, book written by Francis Seow, giving a good account of LKY's battles with all the newspapers incl SH in S'pore. Owners were hounded and banned, editors were persecuted, foreign ownership of papers controlled, then SPH dominated by PAP, and NPPA passed by a PAP controlled parliament.

Read Old Man's speech, and see how he has achieved everything that he was condemning others.

"Repression, Sir is a habit that grows. I am told it is like making love-it is always easier the second time! The first time there may be pangs of conscience, a sense of guilt. But once embarked on this course with constant repetition you get more and more brazen in the attack. All you have to do is to dissolve organizations and societies and banish and detain the key political workers in these societies. Then miraculously everything is tranquil on the surface. Then an intimidated press and the government-controlled radio together can regularly sing your praises, and slowly and steadily the people are made to forget the evil things that have already been done, or if these things are referred to again they're conveniently distorted and distorted with impunity, because there will be no opposition to contradict." -Lee Kuan Yew as an opposition PAP member speaking to David Marshall, Singapore Legislative Assembly, Debates, 4 October, 1956

 

[erection2015]

ah ....i used to like the Herald. It was quite a refreshing change in reporting style and content from the ST. Too bad about them though.

 

[makapaaa]

oh, ok, found this:

http://www.razor.tv/site/servlet/segment/main/news/42176.html

thanks for starting this thread!

1 min 35: ...The government was very upset. A lot of pressure was put on the bosses of the Straits Times to...

Say didn't the the 154th just say they are independent yesterday?

 

[makapaaa]

3:13:..The many young journalists I have with...They told me that things have not changed...There is still a lot pressure...Some said that it's worse!...

=> That says it all - the dishonest 154th that is NOT independent of the FAP! And like what LTK said, the real culprits for the distorte reporting of the Oppos are the FAP chief editors, who owe their allegiance to the FAP.

 

[makapaaa]

So S Rajaratnam supported the New Herald, etc. No wonder the Old Dud has all the so-called Old Guards removed to ensure his free rein over SGs!

 

[Cruxx]

"Singaporeans know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

 

[Nice-Gook]

Here is an interesting write

"These instruments together with the frequent detention of journalists under the ISA have secured for Singapore an almost uncritical press. Thus, when detainee Chan Hock Hua died of cancer in March 1978, no newspaper in the Republic was willing to carry an obituary notice from his family.

The most draconian crackdown on the press occurred in May 1971, when in the space of a few weeks the Government detained four members of the staff of the Chinese-language newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau, including its editor, Shamsuddin Tung, and its former manager Lee Mau Seng, deported the editor of a new English-language daily, the Singapore Herald and closed down both the Herald and the Eastern Sun. The four staff members of Nanyang Siang Pau were accused of glamourizing the 'communist way of life', despite the fact that two of them had a long history of supporting the virulently anti-communist Kuomintang.

Despite these arrests, the Nanyang Siang Pau continued to publish and in January 1973 its managing director, Lee Eu Seng, was also arrested and detained under the ISA. The four senior members of staff arrested in 1971 were all released by the end of 1973 after making 'confessions' to secure their freedom. Lee Eu Seng himself was detained for five years without trial under the ISA before his release on 1 February 1978.

The former chief editor of the newspaper, Nanyang Siang Pau, Shamsuddin Tung, was rearrested in December 1976 during general elections in which he was a candidate for the United Front party. He was again detained under the ISA, allegedly exploiting communal issues, and remained in detention until 22 January 1979. As well as imposing on him the usual stringent conditions forced on an ex-detainee, the Government in October 1978 deprived Shamsuddin Tung of his Singapore citizenship under the Banishment Ordinance, thus making him a stateless person.

Further arrests of journalists took place in 1976-77 following the forced withdrawal of Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP) from the Socialist International. In June 1976, Hussein Jahidin and Azmi Mahmud of the Berita Harian Singapore were detained under the ISA. Within a short period both made 'confessions' that had attempted to slant their news in their journal in a manner critical of the Government. Their arrest was followed in February 1977 by that of Arun Senkuttuvan, Singapore correspondent of the Economist and the Financial Times. Some weeks later the arrest took place of the correspondent of the Far Eastern Economic Review in Singapore, Ho Kwon Ping."

 

[Nice-Gook]

Another interesting read here.

<tt>February 24, 2000 </tt> Dr Chee Soon Juan, secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party, spoke at the Conference on the Media and Democracy, Sydney University, Australia. This conference was jointly organisedby the Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific. This is the text of his speech:



"Shortly thereafter a Malay-language daily, Utusan Melayu, also took flight from Singapore after signs of government threats became too ominous to ignore. Those which were less skittish continued to publish only long enough to wish that they had been more so. In 1971, four of the most senior staff members of the Nanyang Siang Pau, went straight to prison for "glamorizing communism" and being involved in a "black operation". In one year, the wrecking ball swung from the communist left to the American right. This time, the Singapore Herald, a vivacious tabloid, was also accusedof being involved in a "black operation", this time with theUS intelligence. It was closed down. In between, another independent daily, the Eastern Sun, was just as unceremoniously and brutally shutdown- again because someone, somewhere had some information that the newspaper was mired in some "black operation."