Petition for the immediate withdrawal of the Licensing Regime

The whole point of media is to report any abnormality including and in particular Govt wrongdoings. If media is subjected to Govt power, we might as well not have them. People are paying for Govt to spin their stories, crazy!

The Govt must not have power over the media, they are not media experts, and neither is MDA, therefore they should not be the people giving media accreditation. Accreditation, if ever needed, should be given by a body of media experts from institutions of learning.

I am quite amazed to read from ST that only 'accredited' media can receive official statements and are invited to Govt press conference. In this case, even BBC won't be allowed access as it does not has Sg accreditation and has not paid the $50K bond.

I understand that Al Jezeera is banned which is already a big loss to Singapore. Now we get 9 out of 10 (the 1 remaining is now at a limbo to bow in) reporting the same 'news'.

Singapore cannot progress with this giant step backwards and will need to rely evermore on foreigners and casinos if we allow this to happen.

Media regulatory framework should look into copyrights issue with more urgency in this digital age. This is what other first world developed countries are doing.