What we did during SARS.
Straits Times ,Thursday, 01 Feb 07
S'pore a model of govt-media teamwork
By Tom Plate
IN LOS ANGELES - IN THE West we are so accustomed to seeing the news media and the government knifing at each other's throats that any other system would seem outright communistic. But recent scholarly work suggests that, especially in times of a serious health crisis, a more intimate and cooperative government-media relationship might prove the better medicine for the overall health of the public.
Just such an out-of-the-box suggestion has come from a New York public health academic at Ithaca College, a respected liberal arts school. In a surprising study of the responses of governments worldwide to the Sars scare of 2003, Professor Stewart Auyash pointed to one government in particular for its public health policy of proactive containment: 'Of the countries affected, the actions of Singapore's government stand out as an example of how to deal not only with the biological elements of the disease but with the methods, style, tone, timing and breadth of its communicated messages.'
The study appeared in the scholarly journal Media Asia, a publication of the Asia Media Information and Communication Centre (Amic). Because Amic is located on the campus of Nanyang Technological University, which is in Singapore, disbelievers in its conclusions may simply dismiss the work as government propaganda. But at a time when many epidemiologists are worried about the renewed risk of a bird flu (H5N1) pandemic, such blithe dismissals would be a serious mistake.
At the outset of the 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars) crisis, Singapore's government and the media authorities hammered out a clear plan to limit the disease's spread among the populace. It adopted a containment policy that offered a major role for news media groups. The media was asked to promote the idea of positive participation by all citizens to avoid furthering transmission.
Model citizens who followed World Health Organisation guidelines with exceptional care were made proud subjects of newspaper feature stories. Top government officials, including high-profile members of the Cabinet, were photographed or televised as submitting to the same mandatory preventive procedures as everyone else (for example, regular temperature checks). But citizens who fought the programme by either resistance or even tepid nonchalance were portrayed scornfully, with the media publicly castigating them as 'free riders' who benefited from a safer health environment solely through the sacrifices of others.
To make the media policy work, the government had to play things absolutely straight. When officials knew the answer to a scary question about Sars, they answered it quickly and completely; but when they had no answer, rather than making one up and putting their credibility at risk when this was later discovered, they stated flat out that they simply did not know but would try to find out.
In Singapore, compliance with all kinds of government policies, not just health measures, is viewed as a personal and community responsibility. It is in the small city state's civic ethic that 'individual rights and inconvenience may be infringed upon to protect the greater good of the public's health', as Prof Auyash put it.
Even so, what seems notable and possibly transportable to other countries is the cooperative role of the media in a serious health crisis. Prof Auyash pointed out that the role of the media is to emphasise symbols of positive compliance. Gestures and symbols, he said, 'can galvanise a nation's citizens to act. In short, symbols matter'.
In stark contrast to Singapore, you have the less exemplary examples of China, which at first denied that a Sars problem even existed, and Canadian officials in Ontario, who, rather than buckling up and going to work, attacked the WHO for publicly laying a travel warning on Toronto. Instead of focusing on the health and lives of its citizens, some officials appeared more concerned about preventing the disruption of inflowing tourist dollars.
It is noteworthy that these two countries, which responded especially poorly to the Sars challenge, have very different media styles. China's is a more totalitarian one, with editors often working directly for the government; Canada's is more Western in style - adversarial, commercial and negative. By comparison, Singapore's system is often classified by media scholars as 'developmental'.
In this schematic, the media works hand in glove as partners with the government in publicising societal goals, helping the citizenry come to a forward-looking consensus, and refusing to play up ethnic, racial and political tensions by sensationalising them.
Overall, Singapore's way is Singapore's way only and it should be no one else's. But what people around the world noticed about this tiny country is that, when hit with Sars, it managed to put into play a carefully planned approach that can only be described as 'adult'.
Prof Auyash concluded, simply enough: 'Singapore's communication management around Sars can serve as a guide for future infectious disease control measures...There are major principles learnt from Sars in Singapore from which other countries can learn...'
For its part, the US Centres for Disease Control offered a similarly positive post-crisis judgment. This revered health institution praised Singapore's aggressive and expansive policy of contact tracing and home quarantine.
The bleakest projections about bird flu suggest that more than 300 million people could die from a pandemic. Let us hope that such a number will never be realised simply because nations refuse to learn from the successes of others, simply out of pride, parochialism, ignorance or stubbornness. A pandemic of stupidity can kill people, too.
The writer, a veteran US journalist, is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.
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