Gatekeepers are contraints on freedom. Professionalism itself restrains free will and limits individual choice. Many of us would agree that such private restraints (also called responsbility and ethics) actually limit press freedom, but for the right reasons. There are many forces that have an impact on shaping the performance of the media. They condition and control. They slow and mute freedom.
Let's start by looking at the Singapore press. Restrictions within the press were put in place by the colonial Government and have since been used and reinforced by the postcolonial Government mainly as a means of denying 'a proper and legitimate role to political opposition.' During the 40th World Congress of Newspaper Publishers in Helenski in 1987, Lee Kuan Yew said,"If a foreign newspaper publishes biased one sided reportys and distorts its facts, and the government is unable to compel it to acknowledge errors in its coverage, it can build up unchallenged a skewed view of reality which will sway opinions and shape events in Singapore, when a newspaper becomes involved in domestic politics, the Government will move to curb it1 ." Two media giants MediaCorp and SPH MediaWorks are not government owned, The latter publishes dailies in 4 languages. A number of factors limit the freedom of press. Some are external to the press such as national security, court rulings, pressure from advertisers, and subscribers. Some are internal such as professional codes of ethics, the editorial structure itself, and press councils.2 The Government indirectly has control over the issues and stories before they finally make it in print. With this form of control, definitely journalists are not able to fully exercise freedom in wanting to write the stories the way they want. For instance, religious and racial issues are deemed to be sensitive. Journalists have to be tackful in their angle of approach so as not to spark controversy and antagonism amongst readers.
