A year on from retirement, former Cabinet minister Khaw Boon Wan was brought back into service to become the new SPH media group chairman.
The man known as Mr Fix-It is now in yet another situation where he has to right a ship that’s veering off-course.
And understandably, as someone who has no media background, Mr Khaw expressed his “anxiety” at taking on the job.
Some have also questioned whether his lack of media background will be an issue or even result in interference in the newsroom.
These issues were touched on during an SPH media conference on Wednesday (12 May).
A TODAY journalist had posed a question during the press conference, which you can view here.
She’d asked about comments he made in 2017 about how the media “think it’s so easy… like holding a pen and writing a few articles, and get the signalling done”.
His initial reply was that of bemusement:
Really, I said so, huh? That’s quite original thinking.
“People question whether you’re familiar with the tenets of journalism”, she clarified and asked what he thought about these comments.
His reply was that no, he is not a journalist, and he’s “out of (his) depth”.
And because of that, “How could I interfere in the newsroom”, he said.
His role is to provide value to the nonprofit business group, and he remarked that they’ll leave the newsroom to ST Editor-in-Chief Warren Fernandez and other upper management.
“It’s as simple as that,” Mr Khaw said, “…and if I can help you reflect, reconstruct your products to help us realise bigger potential and make the SPH media brand even better, why not?”
Mr Khaw has also remarked that one of his goals is to “unleash the talent and the passion” in the newsrooms.
As mentioned before, SPH said that the goal in its media business becoming a nonprofit is to provide quality journalism.
There have been worries that the appointment of Mr Khaw, someone with no media experience, might impede that.
But it seems that SPH and Mr Khaw have other plans intended to help the newsroom continue to produce quality journalism.
So indeed, Mr Khaw is no journalist, but he wasn’t hired to be one.
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Featured image adapted from YouTube.
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