Significant Damage To Readers' Trust

Leading Japanese daily, the Asahi Shimbun, has been forced into a series of embarrassing admissions over errors it published on the country’s Fukushima nuclear disaster and the use of sex slaves by Japanese troops during the Second World War. Asahi's president, Tadakazu Kimura, said that an internal investigation had found the Fukushima article to be incorrect. “We have caused significant damage to the trust our readers place in us,” he was quoted by the Guardian as saying. The revelations are set to send shock-waves, with dismissal of staff and reprimands promised by executive editor Nobuyuki Sugiura in the aftermath of the scandal. But Singapore is not Japan.

It was the Straits Times who first quoted Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Intan Azura Mokhtar as saying Yang Yin “is one of several [grassroots] leaders in Ang Mo Kio GRC helping foreigners integrate into society.” She quixotically added that Yang Yin “doesn’t hold a position” in the grassroots organisation. To make sense out of nonsense, the holder of a string of university degrees explained that she had described him as such because she considers all grassroots volunteers as “grassroots leaders.”

Then the paper quoted the People's Association as having confirmed that he had been a member of the neighbourhood committee since July 5 last year but resigned on Sept 8 this year. More confusing, on its volition, it chivalrously apologised for an error in reporting. Whether the error is about Yang Yin having held a position, having sent his resignation, or Intan's inability to discern volunteers from leaders, we are none the wiser.

It was the prime minister who first cast negative aspersions when he told student at a forum, "Do you (really) believe everything you read in the Straits Times?" But the perm sec who was made CEO of Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) need not worry about his day job, so long as he remembers the old man's birthday. Chan was once described as "a Rafflesian who has crossed many boundaries" - Principal Private Secretary for LKY, Deputy Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Communications & IT and the Ministry of Transport - all of which had nothing to do with journalism.