Discussion with non-profit sector kicks off series to mark 180 years of ST

SINGAPORE – The first of a year-long series of discussions called Conversations with The Straits Times was held with the non-profit sector here on Jan 14, kicking off celebrations to mark ST’s 180th year in 2025.

The event drew 45 guests, who spent more than an hour in dialogue with ST editor Jaime Ho, senior social affairs correspondent Theresa Tan, and assistant news editor Audrey Tan, who supervises coverage of environmental issues. 

The discussion, held in SPH Media’s Studio+65, its shared video and audio production facility for its newsrooms, was moderated by ST associate editor Jeremy Au Yong, who oversees newsroom strategy.

These sessions aim to bring ST and its audiences closer, by offering readers a platform to engage with the newsroom directly.

The 45 attendees, who came from various non-profit organisations, asked a range of questions about the role of journalism, media coverage, as well as how the English daily stays updated with changes in the social service sector and keeps up with the use of certain terminologies in its news coverage.

Some raised the need for sensitive coverage of suicides that avoid sensationalised accounts, and doing away with terms of disability such as “wheelchair-bound”.

Agreeing, Mr Ho said that ST’s language style guide has been updated in the past few months, and will continue to be reviewed on a continual basis. This would include efforts to reflect issues such as gender sensitivity, as well as terms in the disability space.

“It is a work in progress,” he added, saying that ST is making efforts to update mindsets and styles that have existed over the last 30 to 40 years.

Mr Ho gave the example of wanting to be open-minded and to make the shift where possible to using people’s preferred gender pronouns, while also having to consider feedback from different groups of readers.

“So I have to keep both feedback channels in mind and find a way to be as transparent as possible, that both these things are happening, and we’re trying our best to at least maintain a certain degree of mainstream and accepted pace of what we’re trying to do.”

One of the attendees, Ms Germaine Ong, a communications consultant who volunteers at ReadAble, asked how the media can focus more on stories about people’s journeys rather than the traditional metrics of achievements. ReadAble is a charity that helps boost the literacy of children from low-income families.

For instance, some children beat the odds such as struggles navigating the education system here with migrant parents, and could be happy to be accepted into a polytechnic or the Institute of Technical Education, she told ST after the session.

Mr Ho said ST was on the same page, and was, for example, looking at how best to move away from the issue of covering the national release of examination results.

“There was a time when Singapore and the news celebrated the top student in PSLE, if you remember, and we moved away from that... But I want to move us further away from that.

“I found that sometimes, these results stories were actually counterproductive, and there must be a different way to celebrate the journey, to report the journey, and you don’t need very good results to tell these stories.”

ST’s move, which started in 2025 with the O-level exam results in January, is part of efforts to tell stories that are more inclusive and representative, alongside the ongoing review of ST’s style guide, said Mr Ho.

Ms Judy Wee, executive director of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (Singapore), who attended the dialogue, called for more nuance in portraying persons with disabilities. “Persons with disabilities don’t want to be called inspirations. Some of us really cringe at the word ‘inspiration’. We’re just living our lives the way that we should... just like everyone else,” she said.

The next session of Conversations with ST is slated to be held in March on the topic of education.

Mr Ho said: “As we listen to all of you, our editorial approaches will evolve as well. When we listen, the better we take things in, the better our stories are, and the more they reflect our communities as well, which is... the end goal for us.”