Elites TV, 5 Jun 2012The Straits Times – Singapore's only English-language broadsheet – recently announced that it would be auctioning a Volkswagen car for charity. However, Singaporeans were enraged to find that the money raised would not go directly towards low-income families, but towards sponsoring 1-year subscriptions of The Straits Times for them instead.
The Straits Times‘ editor Warren Fernandez was quoted as saying: ”We want to give the young in these families a precious gift: access to information and a window to the world and all its possibilities. That will help them get ahead in life. We sincerely believe a daily copy of the ST delivered to their homes will do that.”
Some pointed out that by doing this, The Straits Times was not actually doing any charity or donating anything to low-income families; instead they had simply sold 1000 subscriptions of their newspaper, paid for by the auctioned car which was in turn donated by Volkswagen. Full story
