'You look at Taiwan, the Philippines, South Korea. They've got a free press which runs rampant.

'Corruption runs riot, the media itself is corrupted.'

'But the theory is, you have a free press, corruption disappears. Now I'm telling you, that's not true.'

Ms Melanie Lee, the wire agency reporter had asked how Singapore was going to reach a level of cultural development comparable to Italy and Austria -- a target set by Mr Lee for the next 10 to 15 years -- when she felt that, as a society, it had limited freedom of expression.

In response to her question, the MM asked her about her personal background and she revealed that she was a 23-year-old Singaporean.

She herself faced no problems with freedom of expression, she said, because she worked for an international news outfit. But there were restrictions on society here, she argued.

Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.