My Paper to offer best of East and West
Chinese free newspaper will now have an English section

By Ng Tze Yong
December 07, 2007

NO lust, no caution.


Mr Yeow Kai Chai will helm the paper's English section.

Lee Ang's acclaimed erotic thriller Lust, Caution didn't quite manage to turn everyone on when it hit the big screen.

Western eyes, it seemed, couldn't quite figure out just where, in the long-drawn out plot, the much-anticipated lust was.

It hit home, though, with Chinese audiences who understood the movie's many subtleties.

Deputy editor of The Straits Times' Life section Yeow Kai Chai pointed this out yesterday as an example of the gulf in viewpoints that exists today, even in a globalised world.

It's a mind gap he's hoping to bridge.

From next month, Mr Yeow will helm a new English editorial team at My Paper, Singapore's first Chinese free newspaper, as it becomes a bilingual newspaper.

It will be one newspaper with two heartbeats.

Bilingual? Try 'bi-cultural' instead.

UNIQUE APPROACH
'My Paper will take a unique approach to news,' said Mr Yeow. 'We will combine the worldviews of the English-speaking audience and the Chinese-speaking audience.'


Mr Goh Sin Teck will edit the Chinese half.

Added Mr Goh Sin Teck, editor in charge of the Chinese section: 'Each story will be played to the strength of each language, in deciding which section it will end up in.'

Unlike bilingual newspapers elsewhere, the new-look My Paper will feature original content, not just translated stories.

Targeted at working adults aged 20 to 40, My Paper was launched about a year ago to satisfy a new generation of Singaporeans educated in both English and Chinese.

The change is made in response to strong market demand.

It's a timely move, said Mr Robin Hu, executive vice-president of SPH's Chinese Newspapers and Newspaper Services, pointing out that 90 per cent of My Paper's current readers are bilingual.

My Paper's 24 pages will be doubled to feature a 'comprehensive' English section.

More copies will also be printed - from 180,000 to 250,000 copies daily, Mondays to Fridays.

My Paper is available at MRT stations, bus interchanges, offices and selected homes.

Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) chairman Tony Tan announced the change yesterday at the SPH Annual General Meeting.

'It will be a new package never seen before, offering the best of both worlds for Singaporeans,' he said.

The AGM also allowed shareholders to gain an overview of the company's past year's performance.

With group operating revenue of $1.16 billion, net profit attributable to shareholders crossed the half-billion mark to hit $506.2 million.

The Straits Times has largely held on to its readership of 1.3 million. Lianhe Zaobao regained its position as the second most-read newspaper with an expanding readership of 597,000.

Dr Tan also pointed out that the early morning edition of The New Paper has 'led to an immediate increase in sales'.