Press release from the Information Minister!

Only in Singapore (and a few other countries) can one find such funny statements such as these from the Information Minister. Reminds me of Iraq's MSS, hope he's doing OK:

Singapore slams media watchdong for low ranking in press freedom Singapore on Wednesday slammed a media watchdog for ranking the island in the same league as authoritarian North Korea and Myanmar in press freedom, saying outsiders shouldn't equate freedom with criticizing the government. Tightly controlled Singapore placed 147th in the annual index put out by Reporters Without Borders - by far the lowest ranking of any developed country in the annual ranking - and just one notch above Iraq and 18 above Myanmar. Information Minister Lee Boon Yang said the index imposes a standard that fails to take into account "special circumstances" in Singapore, where he said journalists contribute to the nation's development and are not necessarily adversarial. Lee said the Reporters Without Borders index "is based largely on a different media model which favours the advocacy and adversarial role of the press." "We have a different media model in Singapore," Lee says.

Journalists contributing to the nation's development?! Journalism is about reporting news stories, not about public relations! Fantastic spin, and it's even quite attractively believable... :) Source