The new framework is ostensibly to ensure fair and accurate news reporting, and yet the Government throws up justifications that have nothing to do with news reporting at all. Indeed, the Government has not cited one single example of unfair or inaccurate news reporting. And, as either Bertha Henson or Arun Mahizhnan pointed out on Talking Point, inaccurate news reporting is best combated by clarifications and rights of reply -- not outright removal of content.
So the objective of this new licensing framework must be something else altogether. The obvious suspect is censorship, or rather the power to censor, over independent media outlets like Yahoo! and The Online Citizen. (See also my interview in the Straits Times last Saturday June 1.)
The Government has had ample opportunity to make its case for why that is not so. It has failed abjectly in every single attempt. Full story
