Govt takes Al Jazeera to task for misreporting on homelessness cases

By S Ramesh, 27 Apr 2010, CNA online (adapted)

International news agency, Al Jazeera , has been taken to task for not checking its facts in
its report on the homeless in Singapore. A video titled "Government Policies Force Some Onto The
Streets" was produced by Al Jazeera. It featured a couple camping on the beach, claiming that
they had been homeless for nearly two years as a result of divorce proceedings. The government
then made some checks and found a different story. The man in the video had made a tidy sum of
over S$220,000 from the sale of three flats. Meanwhile, the woman still owns an HDB resale flat
with her ex-husband. She was also getting financial help from the South West Community
Development Council.
Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Community Development, Youth and Sports Minister
Vivian Balakrishnan stressed that homelessness is a complex problem and that the government
will continue to enable people to be self-reliant. Dr Balakrishnan said: "Despite these
circumstances, the social workers and the FSC then offered sheltered housing for this couple.
However, the couple rejected the offer and other services offered by MCYS. This is a clear
example where a foreign media has failed to ascertain the facts. Some irresponsible websites have
also caused these falsehoods to circulate widely on the Internet. Now that the facts are out, let us
see whether those who have been propagating these falsehoods have the courage and the
honesty to set the record straight. Homelessness or potential homelessness is a universal threat
all over the world. The question is how best to fix this. In Singapore, we have given housing, cheap
affordable rental housing as well as heavily-subsidised first-time entry into home ownership. The
people who insist on staying in beaches and parks are not first timers and not people who have
bought their first flat or first rental flat. These are people who have almost always sold their second
flat or a third flat, have unfortunately dissipated the subsidies and cashed them, and now have run
into problems."
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera has ceased to operate its channel on mio TV. This prompted
Nominated MP Viswa Sadasivan to ask about the talk that this is linked to the report on the
homeless. Acting Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts, Lui Tuck Yew, said: “On
the speculation that recent critical or negative reports by Al Jazeera were the reason why the
channel was taken off mio TV service, this is unfounded. In a report by TODAY, Al Jazeera itself
was quoted as saying that "it was a 'mutual' decision between Al Jazeera and SingTel for the
broadcaster to drop out of the latter's pay TV service." Mr Lui noted that Al Jazeera 's contract with
SingTel was coming to an end and was looking into other distribution avenues in view of its low
subscriber households.

Choose one of the following questions:

1. Why does the Singapore government take such a serious view of erroneous reporting by
the foreign media?
2. Can the press be truly objective in any society? Why?