TR EMERITUS

One of the least talked about things that came out of the now infamous “umbrage” press conference was the fact that people in the PR business suddenly had a material on how not to conduct a press conference. One of my former juniors who went onto start his own boutique agency posted a list of things that went wrong in that press conference. His list can be found below: Another bit of PR advice came from a Tick Tock video, talking about the five things that one should not do when communicating with an audience. The best possible explanation for Mr. Ng’s PR disaster came from the fact that Mr. Ng probably has a very poor understanding of the role of the media in society. Whilst I agree with my former colleague, I cannot blame Mr. Ng for reacting the way he did in as much as he’s not doing anything that a lot of our local CEOs would not have done. Mr. Ng’s attitude towards the press reminds of a time when a friend of mine was suggesting I play off two suitors against each other. I said something about “I can barely look after myself,” and the friend’s reply was “Why do you need to take care of yourself when there are other people dying to do it for you?” Speaking as someone who has been on the PR team for both a statutory board and a former GLC (the company in question had been divested by a government linked company), I will say that there is a sense of “why do we need to take care of ourselves” attitude when it comes to the media. The reason is simple, there is an expectation that the media is there to take care of them. I was slapped into this realization when it came to results time and dealing with financial journalist. I quickly arranged for the CEO of this company that had just been divested and left to fend for themselves on the stock exchange, with CNBC Asia. I was under the impression that I was scoring points with the client because I thought the CEO would want the opportunity to brag about his vision the global community of investors. This was, after all, what had happened when I put the last CEO of a listed company onto CNBC (Arun Jain, CEO of what was then Polaris Software Labs Limited, which is listed on both the BSE and NSE). Instead of being happy, ended up spending an unhealthy amount of time trying to explain the benefits of an interview with CNBC would have for the image of a CEO of a listed company. His retort was “I don’t see why we have to speak to the foreign media.” Well, yes CNBC Asia may not be primarily based in Singapore but they do reach the investors and analyst that all listed company CEO’s need to appeal to. I had to get a colleague of mine to vet my emails before sending them to this particular CEO because in her words “You’re making him sound really stupid.” Why was there a reluctance of our home-grown CEO (who incidentally started his career in MINDEF) to speak to “foreign” media? I guess it had something to do with the fact that the team at places like Bloomberg and CNBC actually did things like their own research and didn’t take facts from the PR people verbatim. Having said that, it was not like they could surprise you – the general rule of thumb is that senior executives of listed companies cannot go for interviews without clearance for the stock exchange – hence the corp comms have to know the gist of what will be asked – hence Mr. Ng cannot claim he was unprepared, unless the corporate communications at SPH and SGX was criminally negligent. The second experience in dealing with the attitude of the media needs to be on our side came from trying to arrange an interview with someone from the statutory board. My instructions were “Drop the interview – the journalist has a history of negativity towards the statutory board in question. This is the background of how certain large organizations have grown up dealing with the media and when you consider the fact that Mr. Ng comes from this background, the question is – did you expect him to react otherwise? In the local media scene, it’s not a question of publicity and appearing credible but working with the “right” media partner. Talk to enough senior executives and you’ll find that they would rather appear in a newspaper with declining readership than with a website with increasing readership because there is a perception that the powers that be prefer the print and traditional media and its better to get your publicity from there rather than with the guys the government does not like. It’s a shame that our business leaders expect the media to be on the same side. Hostile media or “journalist with a history of negativity” are, in fact one of the best tools to build credibility. Just take a look at this 2013 interview on Fox news given by Reza Aslan: [LINK] The interviewer was clearly hostile and Professor Aslan stuck to his guns. End result was the interviewer looked stupid and Professor Aslan ended up selling a lot of books. Professor Aslan would later admit that he knew that the interview would be hostile. Another candidate who deliberately went out of his way to look for hostile media is Pete Buttigieg who went to conduct a town hall organised by Fox News (which does not have a history of having sympathy to openly gay men). [LINK] Being able to deal with a “hostile” newsperson makes on credible and I believe that senior executives need to learn how to be able to cope with intense questioning. I think back to my former client’s Polaris Software Labs. Their COO, Mr. Arup Gupta came into town and I placed him in front of Bloomberg. Told him to avoid getting into a discussion on the share price and he stuck to his guns and talked about strategy and growth plans while the interviewers were trying to press him on the stock price and showing graphs of how the shares of every Australian bank was bleeding (Polaris’s target market being banks). The man came out of the interview sweating profusely but the share price jumped 20 percent right after that interview. Our leaders need to understand the value of being able to face “tough” questions. A media that does not do its job and ask awkward questions actually ends up hurting those in power.   Tang Li *Although I’ve been based mainly in Singapore for nearly two decades, I’ve had the privilege of being able meet people who have crossed borders and cultures. I’ve befriended ministers and ambassadors and worked on projects involving a former head of state. Yet, at the same time, I’ve had the privilege of befriending migrant labourers and former convicts. All of them have a story to tell. All of them add to the fabric of life. I hope to express the stories that inspire us to create life as it should be.      Read More →

Like the TTSH cluster, the airport cluster shows that vaccination does not prevent infection. Of the eighteen cases in the cluster, eleven have been vaccinated! If anyone still thinks that the vaccine can prevent infection, he really needs to have his head checked. The efficacy of a vaccine is derived by comparing the number of infections in a vaccinated group with the number of infections with an unvaccinated group. To be fair, both groups should be of equal size and the distribution of people in terms of age, sex, risk profiles etc, should be similar for both groups. These people are left to go about their daily lives. If subsequently 100 people in the unvaccinated group is infected while none in the vaccinated group is infected, then the efficacy of the vaccine is 100%. Conversely, if 50 people are infected in both groups, then it means that there is no difference whether one is vaccinated or not, in other words, the efficacy of the vaccine is zero. I have given a more detailed explanation in a post on the TTSH cluster [LINK]. In the airport cluster, out of 18 infections, 11 are vaccinated while 7 are not. That is to say, the effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing infection is worse than 0%! It is almost unbelievable, but what it means is that one is less likely to be infected by being not vaccinated than vaccinated. Granted the above conclusion is accurate only if half the people who have dealings with the cluster are vaccinated and half are not, and that their risk profiles are evenly divided between the two groups, but there are no compelling reasons to believe they are heavily skewed one way or the other. The position that the vaccine prevents infection is increasingly untenable and the government seems to be shifting its position; it is now saying that the vaccine prevents severe illness. I am not sure if they are right, but we will find out in due course if the government does not suppress any information.   Foong Swee Fong      Read More →

S. Iswaran I have watched the exchanges between Pritam Singh (PS) and S. Iswaran (SI) in Parliament about the new not for profit entity, funding and editorial independence etc and I must say that I was most impressed with SI's performance. Let me explain. When PS produced that old 1997 New Paper in Parliament, an old SPH paper that prompted its readers on how and who to vote for in the 1997 GE, in the face of overwhelming evidence contrary to editorial independence as espoused by SI, SI was still insistent to bulldoze his way through Parliament without blinking an eye, blushing or any display of an iota of embarrassment whatsoever. It must take extraordinary thick skinned and shameless politicians to do what SI did so well. Our very sorry World Press Freedom standing at 160 didn't happen for nothing. Advertisers didn't ditch advertising their products and/or services in SPH's print medias in growing numbers over the years for nothing too. Instead of carrying out honest introspections and post-mortem reviews of its failure as a monopoly business, it is so unfortunate for Singapore to have that pap ministar burying his head into the ground and refusing to acknowledge the obvious. The good old quote that anyone who is good at giving excuses is seldom good at anything else rang so loudly in me. I am not impressed with pap ministers' ability to say politically correct things that are so appealing and pleasing to simple-minded suckers' ears or their good command of the english language. Ticking all the boxes or saying all the right things are meaningless when they continue to do the wrong things. Having a not for profit entity is like wearing a new coat but that new coat will not be able to hide a stinking body if that wearer continues to rot. Moreover, our precious tax dollars use to fund the not for profit entity will very likely go down the drain too. To my sucker friends and you know who you are, if you disagree with my commentary, then what do you all suckers think eh, oops, provided suckers can think la. Think.   Simon Lim      Read More →