ABSTRACT
Professional journalists in Singapore are an enigma because the context within which they operate does not fall neatly into any familiar category. While Singapore lacks the press freedom and civil liberties of liberal democracies, the state has not completely commandeered the media in the style of totalitarian regimes. Justifications for Singapore’s press model stress nation-building, with echoes of the 1970s development journalism proposition associated with the Third World. Yet, the country is an advanced industrial economy with among the highest living standards in the world. Singapore journalists are able to operate in a safe and secure environment, free from the deprivation and corruption that plague the profession in many less developed societies. But, they do not inhabit a political culture that values media freedom enough to guarantee the right to access information or to express ideas freely.
