CorpComms Magazine

While British newspapers take a 'no holds barred' approach to most stories, they are famously coy when covering news about themselves and their owners. But here in Singapore, where almost all the newspapers are produced by one monolithic group (Singapore Press Holdings), there is no such concern, so long as the news is good news.

Here's a great recent example. SPH, which claims that its publications are read by 81 per cent of the city-state's adult population every day, has just won a highly-coveted gong for transparency at the annual Investors' Choice awards, organised by Singapore's main retail shareholder lobby group.

The awards, which were judged by an independent panel of postgraduate business students, were officially endorsed by The Straits Times, Singapore's main English language daily paper, and The Business Times, the daily financial paper, both of which are owned by SPH.

But that link didn't stop SPH from running a full-page advert in the special Investors' Choice awards supplement distributed inside The Business Times. 'Singapore Press Holdings is proud to be awarded most transparent company,' the ad read.

Cynics might react with some suspicion but it's fair to say that SPH is being completely transparent, if rather immodest, with its self-congratulatory approach. It's hard to imagine that Pearson (which owns the Financial Times) would ever run an advert in the FT lauding itself for winning an award endorsed by the FT. And such an occurrence is not that unlikely - Pearson was shortlisted in this year's IR Magazine awards (which were sponsored by the FT) for most progress in investor relations. Fortunately for Pearson's ethics committee, it didn't win.

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