The Pilot n' Jo Show

Just finished listening to the interview with Dr. Chee Soon Juan done by the Pilot n' Jo Show, and hey, he speaks well on the show! Ministers should learn to speak like him (just the tone of speech, not the er, content).

After listening to the show, my impression of Dr. Chee remains the same. While admirable for his ideals and pure guts, he is not the most astute and perceptive politician around. His idea for the freedom of speech is sound (and I am all for freedom of speech), and his talk on social contract and the people's responsibility within it -- for instance, your responsibility as a citizen is on-going and should never stop after you've cast your vote -- they are all eloquently articulated. But when it comes to the issues of reaching out to the public and encouraging political participation, Dr. Chee shows naivety that is laughable. He has a blind faith in Singaporeans' interest in politics, and showed an optimism about SDP's launch of pod-casting that is almost unbelievable. I mean, really, how could he be so simple-minded as to assume that a significant number of people will seek out the SDP pod-casts? And let alone download them and play them for their parents and grandparents? Moreover, if my observation did not wrong me, SDP pod-casts are mostly in English. Liddat, they want to reach out to all Singaporeans? Don't make lim peh laugh, okay?

Pod-casting is a very limiting medium. It not only reaches out only to the middle-higher class internet savvy people, it's reaching out to people who are probably already well-aware about the issues the SDP is going to comment on. It's preaching to the converted, and the problem with trying to garner support on the internet is that people tend to only visit sites that are within their interests and their tastes. So you can say that SDP is not really reaching out at all.