The Straits Times caught in a readership lie

Singapore’s state-funded paper of record under fire for hyper-inflating circulation figures with more damning revelations likely to come

SPH Media Trust, the publicly-financed publisher of The Straits Times, Singapore’s newspaper of record, and other daily broadsheets, is under parliamentary scrutiny after an internal review found the circulation numbers of its titles to be arbitrarily inflated by up to 95,000 copies, or about 10% to 12% of average daily circulation.

The Straits Times disclosed on January 9 several practices used to inflate circulation, including instances where copies of SPH Media titles were printed, counted for circulation and then destroyed. Lapsed contracts had continued to be counted in circulation data and a project account had even been injected with additional funding “to purchase fictitious circulation.”

The internal review covered circulation figures for the period spanning September 2020 to March 2022. Still, SPH Media has not said for how long such practices took place, nor has it named any of the staff involved, noting only that four employees had left the company over the incident in December while three staff had been served warning letters.

Not only have the revelations opened the publisher to legal action by advertisers and shareholders, but its taxpayer funding has been cast into uncertainty as well, with the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) undertaking a review of its decision to finance SPH Media to the tune of S$900 million (US$685 million) over a five-year period.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.

UMNO already giving Anwar political headaches

Malaysian leader’s pact with erstwhile rival party is quickly taking the shine off his reform credentials

Anwar Ibrahim’s long-time supporters always believed his rise to the premiership would mark a new era of clean governance and democratization in Malaysia. But few anticipated that when the 75-year-old politician finally clinched the top job, his government would include the very United Malays National Organization (UMNO) party he spent the bulk of his career lambasting as corrupt and anti-democratic.

UMNO was arguably true to that critique at its recently concluded general assembly meeting, where the party’s top two leadership posts were closed to a vote and its incumbent president castigated the judiciary for supposedly politically persecuting imprisoned ex-premier and UMNO stalwart Najib Razak.

While Anwar may have benefited from UMNO leader Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, his graft-accused deputy premier, maintaining his leadership position uncontested by a potential challenger opposed to cooperation with his governing Pakatan Harapan (PH) bloc, concerns are rife that the two politicians’ Faustian bargain will eventually end in political betrayal.

Meanwhile, in the Borneo state of Sabah, Anwar’s “unity government” faced an early stress test when a Zahid-aligned UMNO leader tried and failed to topple the state’s pro-Anwar administration through political defections. While the attempted political putsch was foiled, analysts say the drama is still evolving and could have implications at the national level.

Read the full story at Asia Times.

Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.