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CULTURE UNDER THREAT: But after many years of massive changes to the language environment here, the once-rich and lively source of Chinese culture is running dry. Because of the lack of sufficient sunlight and nutrients, the eco-system is fast diminishing in size. If this persists, we will really face the threat of a breakdown in Chinese culture. - LIANHE ZAOBAO EDITOR LIM JIM KOON (above) -- ST PHOTO: ALBERT SIM
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WHEN Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met Mr Alan Chan at an Istana state banquet recently, he declared: 'I am a faithful Lianhe Zaobao reader.'
What Mr Wen said was music to the ears of the chief executive of Singapore Press Holdings, Singapore's biggest publisher of daily newspapers. Equally pleased was the editor of the Chinese daily, Mr Lim Jim Koon.
The 58-year-old related the anecdote with pride during an interview with Insight in conjunction with the paper's 85th anniversary celebrations this year.
While the Lianhe Zaobao title came into being only on March 16, 1983, after the merger of two former rival Chinese newspapers Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Jit Poh, the paper's history can be traced to 1923 when the late Chinese community leader and philanthropist Tan Kah Kee founded Nanyang Siang Pau.
Sin Chew Jit Poh was founded by another magnate and philanthropist, the late 'Tiger Balm King' Aw Boon Haw, in 1929.
Mr Lim, Zaobao's editor since December 1993, is optimistic about his paper's future: It is a respected Chinese daily well read by Chinese intellectuals, including those in China. The daily's online version, zaobao.com, is popular in China, where it enjoys more than five million page views a day and claims some 900,000 readers.
Zaobao was among the first SPH newspapers to go online in 1995.
Mr Lim believes zaobao.com is popular among China netizens because it offers news and views about China and the world which they seldom get from their country's media.
Another positive sign, he points out, is that circulation of Chinese language newspapers in Singapore did not fare badly the way pessimists had feared.
'Many predicted circulation to fall drastically after the merger of Nanyang and Sin Chew in 1983, but that didn't happen,' he says.
Before the merger, circulation of each hovered around 100,000 or less, with Sin Chew doing slightly better than Nanyang on weekdays. Both crossed the 100,000 mark only on Sundays.
A year later, Zaobao's daily circulation remained at 184,000, not much lower than the combined figures of the two former papers.
Before the merger, all Chinese newspapers combined - Nanyang, Sin Chew and two smaller evening dailies, Shin Min Daily News and the now defunct Min Pao Daily - barely sold 300,000 copies in total a day.
Last year, combined daily circulation of Zaobao and the two SPH Chinese evening papers, Lianhe Wanbao and Shin Min Daily News, was over 400,000.
Zaobao led with nearly 180,000, while Shin Min and Wanbao sell between 100,000 and 120,000 copies each daily.
At its peak in 1994, Zaobao's circulation went as high as 208,000, even on weekdays.
Clearly, more are reading Chinese newspapers. Results from survey company AC Nielsen show that Zaobao, with a daily readership of 700,000, is the second most-read newspaper here. It is just behind The Straits Times' readership of 1.3 million.
Turbulent world
SO ZAOBAO'S numbers look good at present. But Mr Lim remains concerned about the paper's future.
He started his journalism career in the former Sin Chew's foreign news desk as translator and copy taster in 1977 and so has had some first-hand experience of the turbulence in the Chinese newspaper world.
His concerns stem from the increasing dominance of the English language in Singapore, a process which began as far back as the 1960s.
Enrolment in Chinese-medium schools began to fall soon after the People's Action Party came into power in 1959, as parents foresaw a better future for their children if they were English-educated.
One after another, Chinese schools ceased operating. Most were gone by the early 1980s. The last batch of Chinese-stream students completed their pre-university education in 1987.
By then, all Singapore schools used English as the common language of instruction for all subjects except the mother tongue.
Nantah, the first Chinese-language university in South-east Asia set up in Singapore by the Chinese community in 1955, was closed after it merged with the former University of Singapore to become the National University of Singapore in 1980.
All these events had an effect on the growth of the Chinese press in Singapore.
As Mr Lim sees it, the Chinese language and cultural eco-system here is now under threat because of the events of the past few decades.
Speaking at a forum to mark Zaobao's 85th anniversary at Suntec City last month, he noted that the golden era for Chinese culture and heritage in Singapore was over.
These cultural traditions and heritage had, in the past, helped to nurture many outstanding Chinese-language talents and helped to grow a consumer base for Chinese culture.
Most importantly, they created a set of good cultural values with strong Singapore characteristics for all to follow.
'But after many years of massive changes to the language environment here, the once- rich and lively source of Chinese culture is running dry,' he lamented.
'Because of the lack of sufficient sunlight and nutrients, the eco-system is fast diminishing in size.
'If this persists, we will really face the threat of a breakdown in Chinese culture,' he warned.
Desperate measures
MR LEE Kuan Yew, who was prime minister from 1965 to 1990, was not blind to the possible breakdown of Chinese cultural heritage in an English-dominant world.
He was also aware of the value of preserving certain aspects of Chinese cultural traditions. So even though he forced the two main Chinese-language dailies, Nanyang and Sin Chew, to merge in 1983, he ensured that what survived would be a quality Chinese-language newspaper.
This became the Lianhe Zaobao.
The new company that combined Sin Chew and Nanyang was called Singapore News and Publications Limited (SNPL).
The following year, in 1984, SNPL merged with The Straits Times Press and Times Publishing, publishers of the major English-language newspapers in Singapore then, to form SPH.
This, Mr Lee said in 2003, meant that there would be a financially sound media company with the resources of a profitable English press to sustain the Chinese press, in spite of uncertainties over the latter's readership.
He believed that with an increasing number of readers from mainland China, Taiwan and even Hong Kong, Zaobao and SPH's stable of Chinese publications need not worry about readership declining.
Recent circulation and readership figures of Zaobao and other Chinese-language newspapers prove him right. There are now an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese nationals working or studying here.
But most read Zaobao online and subscribers are usually the older ones who have become permanent residents.
One of them is IT professional Li Yeming, 38, who moved here from China to work 12 years ago. He says he reads both the print and online versions of Zaobao because the paper is very different in viewpoints and content from newspapers back home.
'While Zaobao is strong in its commentaries and views on China and other world issues, I hope it will devote more space to promote local Chinese art and culture,' he suggests.
Unhealthy rivals
WITH the benefit of hindsight, Mr Lim now sees the decision to merge Nanyang and Sin Chew some 25 years ago as a right move.
He remembers the unhealthy rivalry between the two papers in the past, which lowered the standard of journalism.
One example: The papers tried to beat each other to news-stands just so they could sell a few copies more.
He recalls: 'As a result, our deadlines got earlier and earlier, to as early as 6pm every day. So news in the Chinese press often fell behind the English newspapers' as events happening in the night could never be covered in time for the next day's papers.'
Under SPH, he says Zaobao has remained profitable, contributing as much as $90 million to the group's total annual revenue from advertising last year. It is also its second most profitable newspaper, after the flagship publication, The Straits Times.
'As a group under SPH, many resources can be shared, reducing our costs tremendously,' he notes. Zaobao has about 200 journalists.
Few Chinese newspapers in the region do as well as Zaobao, he says.
Last year, Nanyang Siang Pau and Sin Chew Jit Poh in Malaysia agreed to merge after years of fierce competition, almost 25 years after a similar merger in Singapore.
In Hong Kong and Taiwan, the more traditional and conventional Chinese papers, such as Ming Po and China Times, are experiencing declining readership, losing the competition to the more sensational press, such as Apple Daily.
Taiwan's China Times last week made a shock announcement to retrench half its staff of 1,200, ahead of a major restructuring and revamp of the paper.
Growing younger
ZAOBAO started Friday Weekly for secondary school students in 1991 and has been relentlessly seeking to attract younger readers since. The weekly now has a circulation of nearly 60,000 copies.
In 2000, it started another weekly, Thumbs Up, for those in primary school.
'We hope to encourage them to read Chinese newspapers when young and grow up to become Zaobao readers in future,' he says.
The median age of Zaobao readers is high at 48 years. He aims to bring that down in the next few years.
Zaobao news reports are written at a level that can be understood by those with Olevels. Its commentary pages are, however, pitched at those more proficient in Chinese.
University of South Carolina's media academic Wei Ran, who recently completed a year's fellowship at Nanyang Technological University's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, says worldwide trends indicate that the young are reading newspapers less.
'Newspapers like Zaobao can still exist, but the ways or platforms they use to reach out to their readers may have to be in multi-media format, through the phone, Internet and so on,' he explains.
He says Zaobao should take advantage of the popularity of its online version to reach out to readers in the new media.
This Zaobao is already doing.
Last year, it launched Singapore's first bilingual online portal omy, which offers 12 free channels of news and entertainment content from SPH's four Chinese-language dailies and magazines, including UW.
The portal is for the Net-savvy generation aged between 18 and 35, and has an interactive platform which allows the public to take part in online discussions and send in videos and pictures.
It also has its own team of reporters.
'Zaobao will continue to reach out to the young, in whatever media or platform, so that they will still read us,' says Mr Lim.
wengkam@sph.com.sg
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