Newspaper

If you havent switched completely over to getting your daily dose of news via your rss feed or emails, then yes, you can also try a newspaper in Singapore. Were the emphasize of the sentence lays on the word "try".

There are planty to choose from and if you are lucky you even find some valuable piece of information in there. However, not on a daily basis though.
Picture by Soham Paulo


The Straits Times

The newspaper for the average seeker of english information will most probably be the local "Strait Times" and resp. the "Strait Business Times" being distributed throughout the whole island.

They get published on a daily basis and cover everything the island produces on coverable topics and will set you back between 1-2 SD per issue.

You can buy the newspaper almost everywhere and if you want to know whats going on in Singapore, if you need property listing or reviews of the latest movies, go for it. You will most likely get a free portion of humour as well.


The Two Worst Pieces Of Information

Furthermore there are two "newspapers" that get distributed for free, twice a day, namely every morning and again during lunch time, at Singapores main hubs, like MRT stations, financial district etc.

They are the "TODAY" and the newly bilingual available "My Paper".

However, calling them "newspaper" woud be like calling Durian a good smelling piece of enjoyable fruit (where by the "enjoyable fruit is discussable). In short words, they are not.
From my point of view, both are not worth the paper they get printed on, stuffed with useless information, but always good if you need a hefty.
Just be careful and don't take them too searious. The only piece of information you might consider valid in them, could be the latest Premier League results and the advertisment telling me where to get my free tissue paper this afternoon.

Amazingly they both have a huge number of daily readers which exceeds half a million easily (due to the little but important fact of being "free" most probably). In a country of approx 4.8 Million people that is a staggering 10%.

The online reference to all three papers can be can be found here:
TODAY online
MyPaper online
Straits Times online


The "Different Media Mode" Problem

There is one general "problem" that comes along with Singapore's free press environment. It is not a free press environment.

The newspapers are all controlled by the government and namely owned by the Singapore Press Holdings(SPH) or the State Media Corporation (MediaCorp) deciding on what gets printed and what not. More probably on what not.

I can only assume how much influence they have on the late product that we will find the next morning on the streets and that thousands of people use as their source of daily information and opinion building.

Not suprisingly though, that the "Reporters without borders" ranked Singapore on a golden 147th place out of 166 countries for freedom of press and speech in 2007.


It All Comes Back To The Internet

Although it is nice to spend a Sunday morning with a cup of kopi and a newspaper, starting the day off slow. But I would advise you to get at least the "international" point of view on hot topics and then maybe the local one to understand the governments intentions and opinions.
Most reliable and easy as uaual, the internet and its millions of information and news pages.