SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) has decided to go ahead with revoking current affairs site Mothership’s media accreditation for a period of six months, due to a second embargo violation that occurred last month.
According to MCI’s website, accredited media companies can receive government press releases earlier than non-accredited media and can be invited to attend press conferences and media briefings. Accredited media companies can also be allowed to enter the press box during parliamentary sittings.
The latest embargo violation involved a press statement by the Public Utilities Board (PUB) on the water price hike. The press release was embargoed until 5 pm on Sept 27, but Mothership ran the story at 5 pm on Sept 26, a day earlier.
Mothership said that after discovering the violation, they immediately deleted the story and launched an internal investigation. It emerged that a member of the editorial team failed to comply with editorial protocols and breached additional safeguards put in place last year.
The staff who made the error in the latest incident was suspended and MCI initially gave the site until October 11 to make a statement to the ministry.
On Friday (27 Oct), MCI announced that it has received Mothership’s representations but that it has decided to go ahead with suspending the site’s media accreditation for a period of six months, until 27 March 2024.
Mothership’s chief editor Martino Tan responded to MCI’s decision, saying that his team will work hard over the next few months to regain their media accreditation and added that the team has adopted stricter and more precise operating procedures to handle embargo requirements.
Last month, when the embargo violation came to light, Mr Tan said: “This is our second breach of embargo in two years, in spite of our commitment and efforts to prevent such a situation from occurring again. While this may have been an error on the part of an individual colleague, as Managing Editor I assume personal responsibility for not adequately ensuring and enforcing the standards that we had set for ourselves.
“We are particularly devastated by this and are deeply disappointed with ourselves. Our spirits have hit rock bottom, but my colleagues and I vow to get to the core of these lapses and resolve these operating issues once and for all.
“We unreservedly apologise to Singaporeans, our stakeholders — especially PUB and MCI — and our industry colleagues for this matter, and for causing such unnecessary trouble at a time when there are more pressing priorities to focus on. I hope our audiences and stakeholders will give us some time to improve, and to once again serve them and their best interests with all our hearts.”
Mothership’s media accreditation was first revoked in February last year because it released the Budget information provided by the government before Finance Minister Lawrence Wong made an official announcement. The accreditation was revoked until August 2022. The latest rule violation comes just over a year after the site regained their accredited media status. /TISG