A rush of blood to the head

The headline: An unprintable picture of what thousands saw...

(Singapore Herald, 26 July 1970)

The text written by Mr Francis Wong: (For my input and why

we published this picture, go to the bottom of this posting)

THIS picture was taken from a vantage point near the offices of the Singapore Herald. The crowd is watching a rehearsal of the National Day Parade.

The parade itself has been blanked out in compliance with an official request not to publish pictures or reports of the event. We felt obliged to comply as we had made use of various facilities provided by the Government.

The Government usually has reasons for what it does. Those for not desiring ANY publicity for rehearsals of the National Day parade are not easy to fathom.

There might be a case for restricting Press activity in the City Hall area, where the hectic rushing about and the shortness of temper frequently associated with final rehearsals might, if latched upon in a sensationalist spirit, spoil the image of a solemn event.

As the Government need not allow the Press into the area, but is good enough to do so in order that the Press, too, may rehearse the coverage for the big day, it has a right to impose conditions.

Once the parade is on the road however, what possible harm can there be in newspapers snapping and printing pictures? It can hardly be argued that an advance glimpse of the coming attraction will diminish interest on the day itself.

Two-dimensional still pictures can never begin to match the splendour of a real parade on the move, music and all. Press coverage of the rehearsal, far from dampening interest, would whet it, and ensure a bigger turnout for the real thing. Any publicity agent would stake his shirt on that.

Besides, as our picture shows, thousands of people see the rehearsal anyway. Why not allow others to enjoy pictures of the spectacle?

It's a bit thick for the Government to discourage well-intentioned efforts by the Press to serve their readers -- and play a part in making the national celebrations a success. What newspaper could possibly have any other purpose?

The parade rehearsal takes place in public streets. If ordinary citizens are not banned from looking on, taking pictures and talking about what they see, neither should newspapers be.

                                                   --- end of text ---

Hindsight note: I am convinced that this was very likely what riled LKY to begin with. Who can blame him for wanting to get even? So he fumed and grew horns and plotted how to launch his crafty "black ops" campaign. This took just over nine months, the length of time a pregnant woman takes to go into labour.

When LKY finally went into labour himself, he delivered a classic oxymoron --
that reckless, hyperbolic statement that "the Singapore Herald has been taking the Government on since its publication in July last year." The contrived demise of the Herald followed in short order.

Okay, so it was a deliberate, calculated act of defiance to publish this picture. Almost three full weeks had passed since our launch date and there had been no occasion for anyone to accuse us of taking on the Government.  So just where did he get the notion that the Singapore Herald had been "taking the Govenment on since its publication in July." Surely he can be trusted to get his dates right!

Francis chose his words with commendable restraint to explain why we decided to publish the picture.

And we were aware that the picture and the accompanying words would tend to portray LKY as one who probably had had a rush of blood to the head to cause him to behave like a wannabe Chief Editor in the Prime Minister's office. Did he have a rush to the head or did he get up on the wrong side of his bed on the morning that he made up his mind to issue that order?

There can be no doubt that on opening the paper, he himself must have realised that he had emerged from this episode looking uncharacteristically like a nitwit or moron who had issued an idiotic order, expecting unquestioning compliance. But he could not blame us for his discomfiture. He had brought it all on himself. We were just doing our job as journalists, duty-bound to defend the basic rights of journalists, indeed the rights of every citizen.

In any case, LKY knew he was dealing with competent journalists with impeccable credentials running the Herald. How could he even think that anyone could be persuaded or conned into believing that such professionals would want to launch a new paper just to take on the Govenment from the word go?


What was the percentage in it for these journalists?

  A preposterous proposition! I quote LKY verbatim here -- he asked me: "Why did Francis and you leave secure jobs in a well-funded company to do this?" Yes indeed, LKY knew that Francis had been Sunday Mail editor and had gone to Harvard on a Nieman Fellowship; on the Internet anyone could have done a Google search and learn that I was Deputy Managing Editor in The Straits Times group when we decided to launch the Herald. Oxymoron? Indubitably!

In any case, LKY's position was untenable from the start, when he suggested that with foreign investment in the Herald, we could be manipulated to do Singapore in.  We reminded him that The Straits Times and other papers in that group had foreign investment aplenty even before the launch of our paper.

Continuing to masquerade as wannabe Chief Editor at City Hall, LKY chose to ignore this relevant fact and pressed on with his "black ops" charges, at the same time introducing a couple of red herrings in disclosures about $4 million of Chinese funds channelled to Aw Kow of the Eastern Sun and the Nanyang Siang Pau's pro-China editorial slant.

He lumped all three newpapers together in an attempt to prove that all three newspapers (this gang of three) were involved in "black ops" activities.

When we were defending ourselves daily for eight days from May 19, 1971, when the battle lines were drawn, until the publishing licence was pulled by LKY, we could have called attention to LKY's unseemly and inane behaviour in this National Day rehearsal episode  -- but the main focus in our defence was to try to persuade him to let the Herald live, to give due weight to our protestations of innocence, to see for himself that the erstwhile "running dog" was barking up the wrong tree.

If we had chosen to remind Mr Lee at the time of his faux pas -- indeed an unfortunate blunder which he himself would have wanted to forget -- it would have been like waving a red flag before a bull!

 What editors do the morning after:
Until I retired, every morning while sipping my morning coffee, I would make a conscious effort to review what I had done the previous night as editor of a newspaper.... Always, the idea was to look at what I had done in terms of display and whether my judgment of the relative values of each story could have been improved. 


This was akin to a post-mortem examination of a cadaver by a pathologist...  and I would ask myself: "What could I have done to make the paper better?" -- recognising the time constraint, of course. The more time I had overnight for making changes, the better the result.


The paper would be laid out flat on the floor and I would be seated in a chair. At that distance, the mix of graphic elements and text could be better assessed for balance on each page. The aim always was to achieve a balanced and attractive composition. In our trade, this was recognised as "layout."


I used to teach this regularly in classes set up by the Asian Press Institute, also in-house classes in The Straits Times, The New Straits Times, The Singapore Monitor, Institut Technologi Mara (Journalism Course) in Alam Shah, etc.


Well, looking at the National Day rehearsal picture spread across 75 percent of the width of a double-page spread my first thoughts were: "Well, Mr Prime Minister, now that you have seen how we dealt with your explicit order not to print anything about the National Day rehearsal, you are probably frothing at the mouth this morning."


Now, nearly four decades on, I have some observations and mano-a-mano questions for Mr Lee (I refuse to accord him recognition as Minister Mentor, because on the evidence in my books, he somehow skipped the process of seeking approval, and without so much as a "by your leave," he simply went ahead and crowned himself, imitating the Little Emperor in Notre Dame).


I have to ask Mr Lee this: Was it possible that you might have been thinking: "Why, look here, I have such powers of persuasion." Instead of "persuasion," I am inclined to read "coercion and intimidation."


Another question. Did this cross your mind? " Let's try Francis Wong's mettle. After all, he did me a disservice with his piece entitled  'A plague on both your houses' when we were battling the Barisan Sosialis. And after that, when I suggested that he might consider thinking of changing jobs to be my speechwriter, he had the temerity to laugh at the suggestion." (Did you miss the services of Alex Josey that much? Pity, you lost him; he was collateral damage when you mounted your high horse and embarked on your quixotic "Malaysian Malaysia" misadventure, tilting at the ultra windmills).


Mr Lee, you probably will be wondering how we arrived at our decision to print that National Day rehearsal picture. Well, I can give it all to you in spades....


Francis and I gathered a senior group to discuss your order. I knew Francis could  get the words right. But first, we had to decide whether to comply with your request.  Don't forget, we had worked in The Straits Times and other papers and your reputation in matters of what you could persuade editors to do had preceded you.


At the drop of a hat, even without provocation, you were wont to refer to "those timorous editors" with a sneer. (You also left a group of reporters gaping when you called Mr David Marshall "a buffoon" after a press conference. You were a rookie politician then, so perhaps you could be forgiven for shooting your mouth off, damn the consequences).


Back to the National Day rehearsal. We were then in the third week of publication. We asked ourselves: Was this how we were to run this new paper -- with major decisions taken at City Hall? My outburst: "No way, we must tell LKY he must keep his cotton-picking fingers off this paper. This tinpot dictator is not going to run this paper. No, no, no."


I then explained how we could get round the problem -- by blanking out the marching column.
We discussed at length what we thought was behind LKY's order, even thinking that perhaps he did not want readers to identify the Israeli officers (masquerading as Mexicans) training our National Servicemen to fight a war perhaps surrounded by potential enemies!


How big should the picture be? I was asked. So I sent for the production manager and asked him: "What is the largest size screen we have?" For those not familiar with half-tone pictures printed on newsprint, let me explain that the screen is laid over a picture to create dots so that darker parts of the picture will have the dots close together, and the lighter, gray parts will have the dots printed further apart.


So I, as layout editor and second-in-command, determined that our largest screen limited the size of our picture to one that would cover 75-80% of a double-page spread for maximum impact, with the accompanying text just below the pix.


No craven, mealy-mouthed defiant gesture for this newspaper run by professionals proud of their skills -- AND equally proud of Singapore, where we hoped such professionals would be allowed to ply their trade in perpetuity with skill and honour, without any meddling by wannabe Chief Editors in City Hall.


Mr Lee, you have made it quite clear that some people can anger you. What you should bear in mind is that you can also anger others -- like Mr. Khoo Teng Soon, long-time Editor-in-Chief of The Straits Times. He was always T.S. to us, not Teng Soon, highly respected and much-loved.


Well, one night, close to press time, as he put down the phone at his desk, he muttered to me, standing beside him for last-minute instructions: "That bastard Kuan Yew! If I see him lying in a drain, I will stop, NOT to help, but to spit on him." He had just taken one call too many ordering him not to print one more story.


This from a man who was never known to raise his voice in the newsroom!


Somehow I think you should be a little wary in your next life, if and when you should have one; who knows you might stumble across T.S. or vice versa. You would be well advised to duck. A ghost spitting at another ghost, by golly that would be a sight to behold. How about that for a Halloween movie!


(For more of this, please go to additional posting: Rush of Blood Two).


(To be continued.....editing this posting)