Dear friends and readers, Jom, the media outlet I co-founded two years ago, just published an essay on Lee Hsien Loong’s legacy. It’s in many ways the first of a long series of election-related content that we have planned. The next general election (GE) must be called by November 2025, but may be as soon as the end of August. It’ll be the fourth GE … Continue reading Lee Hsien Loong’s mixed legacy, our first election piece
Sticky post
Dear friends and readers, Thanks for all your support these past years! As some of you know, I have, along with Charmaine Poh and Tsen-Waye Tay, recently co-founded Jom, a new media outfit. Jom will be a weekly digital magazine covering arts, culture, politics, business, technology and more in Singapore. I am slowly winding down my writing elsewhere, and will soon be writing only for … Continue reading Jom, our new media outfit
The reason I haven’t written much here this year is because all my writing is now at Jom, a new magazine about Singapore that a few of us launched in August. (Haven’t heard of it? Hello-oh, where you been, macha?)
My best friend whom I’ve hardly seen of late just told me that we should do a “2022 Jom Year in Review” type thingy that seems to be so fashionable among the new media literati, and I think we should next year, 2023, once we’ve had a full year of operations, Our Books of the Year, Our Home Baker of the Year, Our favourite politician TikToks of the year, look out for that—don’t you hate it when people say ‘look out for that’ for something so far away—but in the meantime I’ll just do a very bloggy post to address everyday questions from my friends in this style that only 0.01% of you appreciate, too bad, just exercising a literary muscle that’s been left to atrophy by my editorial masters at Jom, so you can leave now but then you’ll miss the story of when Anthony Bourdain returned to haunt me through Twitter in late September.
But, first,
Continue reading “the most stressful week of the year”
This is a conversation with old buddy Unsu Lee and newer one Douglas Evans about media, censorship, diversity, propaganda and democracy. Thanks for having me on your show guys! Was lots of fun.And of course, thanks a lot to Min-Wei Ting, the man behind the camera. Copy from Breaking the Spell: “Why Care About Media and Democracy in Singapore? A Conversation with Sudhir Vadaketh When … Continue reading Media and democracy: A video podcast with Breaking the Spell
For the first time since 2004, Team Singapore failed to win a single medal at the Olympics. Much attention understandably focussed on swimmer Joseph Schooling, who had won our first ever gold at Rio 2016, for the 100m butterfly, setting an Olympic record in the process. Following Schooling’s failure to qualify for the 100m semi-final at Tokyo 2020, finishing last in his heat, internet commentaries … Continue reading Did we support, criticise or abuse Schooling? Let’s look at the data
(Disclosure: both my parents are medical specialists; my wife has a graduate diploma in family medicine though she no longer practices.)
Over the past week an interesting informational contest has emerged in Singapore over the publication of an open letter by twelve doctors to parents in which they cast doubt on the value of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine—and broadly any vaccine that relies on messenger RNA technology—to children.
Their letter has been meet with ridicule by the establishment, including calls by Calvin Cheng, a former nominated member of parliament and conservative commentator, for their medical licenses to be revoked (as part of his broader critique of the knowledge and expertise of family physicians).
Continue reading “Is the doctors’ letter fair opinion? Or a dangerous view that should be kept out of the public square?”
Today we heard the news that Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is spinning off its media unit, including The Straits Times and many other publications, into a non-profit entity. This follows years of consistently poor performance amid digital disruption and other changes to the media industry.
Wiser minds will engage in more thorough post-mortems—has anybody seen Ho Ching’s feed today?—but I wanted to spark a small conversation on the culture of elite governance in Singapore.
“If not for the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS), the loss would have been a deeper S$39.5 million,” Lee Boon Yang, SPH’s chairman, said in reference to the media business’s first-ever lost of S$11.4m, for the financial year which ended Aug 31 2020.
(Which includes management salaries. In case you missed it, since the JSS began in February 2020, the Singaporean taxpayer has helped pay even more for the upkeep of numerous millionaire elites.)
All this got me thinking. Why exactly is Lee Boon Yang the chairman of SPH?
Continue reading “The elites have run The Straits Times into the ground. What’s next?”
“…in today’s world it’s getting easier with the gig economy and freelance or contract worker or independent worker isn’t such a bad word anymore for some people but it was certainly difficult… but I was also so energized. So I think it wasn’t just nerves, I think this is the interesting thing about any journey, at the same time there’s this sense of excitement about … Continue reading My appearance on the Brave Dynamics podcast
Note: Amid this flight from the Facebook/WhatsApp empire, a quick note that I also have a Telegram channel: SudhirTV.
It has been a fun, fulfilling, rewarding year being a writer and commentator in Singapore. Thanks so much for following my work. I’m feeling more enthusiastic about Singapore’s social, political and literary climate than I ever have. It’s a terribly exciting time to be living and working here.
Nevertheless, I thought it might be good to spend some time going over some of the hurdles independent writers here face, something that I’m regularly asked about.
So, treat this for what it is, a reflective, end-of-year piece for the benefit of readers and young writers in Singapore interested not only in the product but the process.
Continue reading “Ups and Downs of writing in the pandemic year”
This past week I ventured into uncharted territory: asking for, and accepting, contributions from companies.
Read on if you want to understand the editorial safeguards I have tried to put in place to maintain my independence and integrity, crucial for my relationship with you, dear reader.
Continue reading “on my own product marketing and sponsored content”
