People’s Action Party’s greatest foreign supporter and propagandist, ‘Critical Spectator’ or Michael Petraeus, has made a repeated unsustained claim against TOC to somewhat justify the circulation figures scandal the SPH media is currently embroiled in.
He wrote, “Is it just me or are those people furious about SPH faking its circulation figures by 10% largely the same ones who still think it was no big deal that TOC hired Malaysian writers and had them pretend to be Singaporeans, using fake names?” and repeats the same allegation in a separate post to defend his apparent position on the ruling party of Singapore.
In his posts, Petraeus gave no proof of the allegation of his claim about TOC.
So, where did this unfounded allegation against TOC come from?
This allegation originated from the great Minister of Home Affairs and Law K Shanmugam, when he commented on the article that the Prime Minister of Singapore had sued me for defamation in 2019.
Speaking at the one-day conference on Foreign Interference Tactics and Countermeasures, Shanmugam noted that the writer of the article was staying in Malaysia, “writes these things for a Singapore site to target a Singapore audience,”
“Who controls her? Who pays her? What is her purpose? All these are legitimate questions. Most readers would just assume this was by a genuine Singaporean contributor.” asks the Minister.
Shanmugam noted that only five out of TOC’s 14 administrators are said to be based in Singapore. “Nine are outside – four are in Malaysia, two are in Indonesia. We don’t know who they are. Are they Singaporeans? Are they foreigners?”
Following the publication of the news reports carrying his comments, I responded via a report on TOC, asking what the Minister was barking about since there is no law against hiring foreigners and the website has not received any foreign funding.
I also said, “If one is to observe the series of Facebook posts and now, the Law Minister comments, one can easily come to a conclusion that there is a collaborated campaign to discredit TOC.”
This still stands true, especially with the repeated lies by individuals and entities such as the ‘Critical Spectator’.
In regard to the article by the Malaysian writer, it has been proven in court that the article was written under directions by me and not out of the own ideas of the writer. A write-up detailing this was posted back in 2019.
As for the non-Singaporean writers, a website dug out the details of the writers and posted them in an article. The details were obtained from Linkedin where they listed themselves as writing for TOC.
Now, given that the writers listed their real nationality on their Linkedin profile, listed TOC as a company that they were working in, and used their real names as the basis for their writer name on the website — for example, Rubaashini Shunmuganathan, who wrote the 2019 article, has her pen name as Rubaa.
How can one say there was an intention to masquerade them as Singaporeans writing on Singapore. Not to mention that they are writing news and not opinion pieces, unlike someone like the Critical Spectator.
Furthermore, being cognisant of the departure from relying on Singaporean writers and volunteers, I made the open declaration on TOC’s About Us page.
“We have managed to stay the course for nearly a decade thanks to the unstinting support of a sizeable pool of writers, photographers, editors and many others who have volunteered their time and expertise. Without their dedication and passion, we would not still be here today.
As we complete our 13th year, we continue to depend on the contributions of volunteers. We have, however, made a few changes to ensure the sustainability of our operations and to keep pace with the changes we have seen in Singapore and the region in the last decade.”
In that update, I also removed mentions of TOC being a publication being a volunteer-based organisation as it has shifted its mode of operation to that based on full-time staff in order to keep pace with the news cycle.
I have challenged many in the past who have made similar claims made by the Minister for proof that TOC, in its Singapore entity, had misrepresented its non-Singapore writers as Singaporeans.
So far, none has been able to do so, and I welcome those who wish to prove it to do so.
Just don’t simply repeat what the Ministers say as if it is gospel truth.
Take what PAP Minister S Iswaran said about the readership of SPH, for example. He said in Parliament that its circulation had increased by 5 per cent from 2017 to 2020 in support of the Government funding the SPH Media Trust in the tune of up to S$180 million a year for five years or a total of S$900 million using taxpayers’ monies.
We now know today that there is, in fact, a discrepancy of between 85,000 and 95,000 daily average copies across all titles of SPH Media, which represents 10 to 12 per cent of the reported daily average circulation.
It is unknown if Iswaran was aware of this when he made his speech, but nevertheless, it would appear he misrepresented the facts to the Parliament with his speech, and he would have to make a correction to it in Parliament.
Despite this ridiculous revelation — which emerged not by SPH Media’s own violation but due to a scoop by Wake Up Singapore, we have yet to see any of the PAP Ministers coming out to criticise SPH Media over the misrepresentation of circulation figures fed to the Government and its advertisers or to address the issue.
Instead, we have a Polish blogger going rampant with his propaganda pieces to distract people from the embarrassing scandal for the PAP Ministers.
And by the way, did the Critical Spectator say anything about using fake names? Because his real name is Michał Piotr Pietrusinski, not Michael Petraeus.
