The Singapore Herald Affair

lN MAY, 1971 THE SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT CAUSED AN ENGLISHlanguage newspaper, The Singapore Herald, to cease publication. Although its circulation was considerably less than the long-established Straits Times, in its year of existence the Herald had gained many loyal readers. They looked to the Herald for balU?ced, critical commentary on national affairs, something rarely found in the Times, at least during the three years (May, 1968May, 1971) I lived there. The letters from readers published in the Times only became interesting after the Herald began publishing provocative letters from the public. Nor is the Herald to be considered an expatriate newssheet. After the paper was threatened by the government, a group tried to establish a cooperative that would take over .the Hendd; among the leaders of this move were local staff members and students from the University of Singapore. In fact, on May 21, 1971, the University of Singapore Student Union issued a statement declaring that it was not convinced by the government's arguments against the Herald. The statement read: "Till the Herald is proven guilty, we assume i't to be innocent, and we shall support its right to exist as a newspaper." The closing .of the Herald was traumatic for the English-educated in Singapore, which is about half the population. They lost the one public voice willing to speak out in a country controlled by one party, the People's Action Party (PAP), if not by one man, the prime minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew. As a reader wrote to the Herald, "Herald is the only English paper that has the guts to criticize the government without fear. I give three cheers to the management and the sta:ff."1 This sentiment was repeated in numerous letters published in the Herald while the paper awaited a final decision on its fate. Why was the paper closed? On May 24, 1971, the government issued the following statementThe real is.suc is not the freed'om of the press. It is whether foreigners, including an ex-chief minister of a foreign government, and currently a high-ranking diplomat in its employ, should occupy a commanding position from whicll they could manipulate public opinion ia the Republic. No government can allow th1s. The Herald was financially backed by a high-ranking Malaysian official and by Hong Kong money. This is undisputed. But what·many, such as the University of Singapore Student Union, believe is that the government failed to prove that this foreign money unduly influenced the policy of the Herald.