ST refuses to challenge falsehoods

Straits Times published a fluff piece today, an interview with National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan about the cost of public housing. The minister produced a chart proving that median household income has kept pace with prices of flats, which is touted by ST's Jessica Cheam to be "hard facts and statistics".

Mr Mah Bow Tan gives this calm assurance: Housing prices have not moved faster than household incomes in the past decade, contrary to popular opinion.

To back it up, he whips out a chart of fresh figures collated by the Housing Board (HDB) and the Department of Statistics. It maps out the HDB resale flat price index and median household income levels over the past 10 years, with 1999 as the base year.

It shows that from 1999 to 2001, median household incomes actually outstripped resale home prices, rising 10 per cent, while home prices fell 13 per cent. From 2001 to 2006, the two inched upwards in tandem.

Both indicators rose sharply from 2006 onwards during Singapore's last property boom - until a major blip: Median household incomes fell from 2008 to 2009 because of the financial crisis, while resale flat prices continued to inch up.

Pay attention to the constant use of the term "median household income", which is a very misleading benchmark. Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam explains this very clearly, in the Reform Party's response to the government budget for fiscal year 2010:

A plausible explanation is as follows. Firstly though he omits to tell us, he probably means residents (which include PRs) and not just citizens when he talks about Singaporean households. Over the past decade the resident population grew by 15% while the resident labour force grew by approximately 25%. This was undoubtedly due to the surge in new citizens and PRs as a result of the government’s liberal immigration policies. The majority of these new residents did not have dependents (hence the much faster rise in the resident labour force than the resident population) and all of them would have had jobs so the proportion of working adults in the average resident household would have risen.

As a result we would have seen an increase in real median income per household member without any real increase in the median incomes of Singaporean citizens who were already here before this period began, i.e., the majority of us. Another reason why the Minister’s figure is misleading is that it excludes households consisting solely of non-working persons over 60. If their incomes fell during this period or their numbers increased as a proportion of total households), due not only to the aging population but also because of the diminished employment opportunities for senior citizens as a result of the government’s open-door foreign worker policy, then excluding this group would distort the figure for median income per household member and make it look better than it really is.

This was released on February 26th, 2010. Median household income is a figure that does not meaningfully represent public opinion or perception, and is trumpeted by the minister because it backs up his reality. The reality for many middle-class Singaporeans, however, is very different.

Singapore Mind drills down:

The article uses "resident household income" instead of "Singaporean household income"- to tell how badly affected were Singaporeans by rising housing costs, you have to use Singaporean incomes as a measure. Using misleading statistics to push the blame for the housing situation to ordinary Singaporeans who are finding it increasing hard to cope with rising cost of living is highly irresponsible. The Minister should address the problem directly instead of denying responsibility.

And he is spot on. This statistical chicanery is unacceptable. But what is even more unacceptable is the wretched standard of journalism that enables the minister and his PAP colleagues to continue this abdication of responsibility, as if policies made by the PAP government are formulated by the people, and the people, not the government, are therefore to blame.

Jessica Cheam and the Straits Times not only failed to research and challenge the minister's "facts", but also assisted the minister in spreading this falsehood; and when distortions or fabrications go unchallenged, they establish themselves, over time, as facts, never mind how wrong it is. Instead of holding the government accountable, ST joins the government is displacing the responsibility from where it belongs.

The Straits Times and its journalists are just as culpable as the PAP in manufacturing an uninformed, detached, and unquestioning citizenry, and the continued reign of the PAP to the detriment of Singapore and Singaporeans.

(via The Online Citizen)

Comments

[LHL's Dead Wife]

To the author,
You are assuming that the Straits Times operates in the same way as proper newspapers such as The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, or even The Daily Planet for that matter!!! This is a popular misconception that many Singaporeans hold about our so called Newspaper!!

The truth of the matter is that the ST is nothing more than a PAP loudhailer that has no other agenda other than to expound the glories of the PAP and never ever portray them unfavourably! The ST is staffed by writers who start out with the right journalistic aspirations but quickly have their wings clipped and are turned into mere propagandists spouting the same old tiring PAP rhetoric. Those with any sense of journalistic integrity have left the ST and are now mostly working for foreign news agencies.

So in light of that, their lack of effort to expose the lies and deception of Mabok Tan in the above interview is really quite expected and very consistent with the actions of most propaganda mouthpieces..

regards,
former ST employee :)

[Callan Tham]

If you read the other posts I wrote about ST, you'll know that I understand this perfectly and I agree with what you said.

However, I'm afraid you misunderstand the purpose of this post: it is precisely because it is "a popular misconception that many Singaporeans hold about" ST that I wrote it. I want my friends to know, and I encourage my friends to tell their friends, and for them to tell theirs. Only by pointing their failure in journalism, continuously and relentlessly, can we overturn the widely held opinion of the ST as a reliable source of information.