SINGAPORE: A number of prominent figures have drawn attention to a glaring spelling error on the front page of Singapore’s national broadsheet, The Straits Times. The headline on the front page of the newspaper on Saturday (16 Dec) misspelt the word “prioritises” as “priotises”.
The error quickly drew eyeballs on social media with sharp criticism – not just because of the seeming lack of checks that led the error to be printed and distributed in the country’s national paper, but because The Straits Times is the flagship publication of SPH Media Trust (SMT) – a non-profit entity that is receiving close to an eye-watering $1 billion in funding from the Singapore Government.
Months after Singapore Press Holdings was restructured into SMT in 2021, the government announced that it would inject up to S$900 million in funding support for the entity over five years, with up to S$180 million being disbursed annually.
The question many are asking is how could such a conspicuous error be published by an entity that is heavily subsidised by the Government.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s estranged brother, Lee Hsien Yang, quipped on Facebook: “We were told in the The Straits Times of 27 Jan 2022, “SPH Media Trust to focus investments in talent, tech to deliver quality journalism”. Maybe they should invest in a spell checker as well to avoid embarrassing errors on the front page headline of the day.”
Academic Donald Low, meanwhile, called the error akin to a “slap in the face of the government”. Pointing out that the headline has more issues than one, he wrote on Facebook: “The headline is so deliciously bad that it’s a great slap in the face for the very government that subsidises the newspaper. Putting aside the obvious typo, the headline is still wrong and says the opposite of what the writer wants to say: single-use items are being eliminated, not prioritised.”
He added, “Maybe the ST is so sensitive that it’s also a single-use item that it purposely does this. But it needn’t be so sensitive — it’s not a single-use item; it’s zero-use.”
Prominent socio-political commentator and founding editor of The Online Citizen, Andrew Loh, pointed out that SMT is led by retired People’s Action Party (PAP) politician and former Cabinet Minister Khaw Boon Wan, who is infamous for having said that people in the olden days would commit hara-kiri over mismanagement.
Mr Khaw had been commenting on mismanagement issues involving the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC) represented by the opposition Workers’ Party.
Pointing out that the taxpayer dollars being channelled to SMT is more than ten times the amount involved in the AHTC case, Mr Loh said: “It is ridiculous for the govt to give taxpayers’ money to a so-called “high quality journalism” “newspaper” when it can’t even get simple spelling right. In fact, it is patently clear that everyone from the editor to the writer can’t even be bothered to do simple fact and spelling check.
He questioned: “How does this sort of utterly lack of basic standards deserve almost $1 billion of taxpayers’ money? A simple mistake on the front page, in big bold headline. How does someone on top of the job miss such a blatant mistake?”
Asserting that he considers the taxpayer funding to SMT “reckless,” Mr Loh added that the error “jumps out at you if you have a trained eye. And any editor worth the salary (paid by taxpayers) would spot it straightaway. And so would a “senior environmental correspondent”, who wrote this piece.”
Meanwhile, former Straits Times heavy editor Bertha Henson highlighted multiple issues with the article. She wrote on Facebook: “The headline is so so wrong – implies that public sector will focus on using single-use items. Spelling wrong also. Should be : Public sector to cut back on single use items.”
