So the New York Times has paid $114,000 (S$160,000) in damages to Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong for an article which said: "Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong is Lee Kuan Yew's son". That's $12,666 in damages for each of the nine words in that sentence.
There was no further reference to the Lees and Singapore — and none at all to Goh — in that article written by Philip Bowring and headlined All in the Family, which was published by the International Herald Tribune and the Khaleej Times in February. (See previous post.)
And the New York Times is paying legal costs too.
Singapore lawyer Davinder Singh, acting for the Singapore leaders, said the article was "libellous", reports Reuters.
The New York Times in its apology regretted causing any distress to the leaders by including the Lees in a list of Asian political dynasties. It did not intend to imply PM Lee owed his position to his father, it said. It recalled Bowring gave an undertaking to the Singapore leaders in 1994 not to say or imply that.
Richard Perez-Pena in the New York Times writes:
The case stems from a similar one in 1994, when Mr. Bowring, a former editor of The Far Eastern Economic Review and a freelance contributor to The Herald Tribune, wrote a column in The Herald Tribune that also referred to “dynastic politics” in East Asian countries, including Singapore.
In that case, three of the country’s leaders threatened legal action: the elder Mr. Lee, who was prime minister from 1959-90 and remained a power in government; his son, who was a deputy prime minister at the time; and Goh Chok Tong, the prime minister at the time.
The Herald Tribune, then co-owned by the Times Company and The Washington Post Company, published an apology… According to some news reports, the paper also paid a financial settlement.
But then he adds:
Singaporean leaders have a history of taking the offensive against news organizations for language that would be legally protected — or even considered relatively innocuous — in the United States, threatening legal action or restricting the sales of publications.
“Nobody in most of the world would bat an eye about” such a piece, said Stuart D. Karle, a former general counsel of The Wall Street Journal, who has handled disputes with Singapore’s leadership but was not involved in this case.
Reuters says:
Singapore's leaders have in the past sued and won damages, or out-of-court settlements, from opposition politicians and foreign media including the International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and The Economist.
Singapore, considered to have the lowest political risk among Asian nations by many risk consultancies, is a hub for manufacturers, banks and expatriates, who value its stability. The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) has governed for 50 years.
Singapore was ranked 133rd among 175 countries in the World Press Freedom Index 2009 by Reporters Without Borders.
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