SPH Media spending S$3m in subsidies over a year to support newspaper delivery

SPH Media is spending a total of S$3 million in monthly subsidies this financial year to support doorstep delivery of newspapers, SPH Media chief executive Chan Yeng Kit said on Friday (Feb 7).

In his remarks at SPH Media’s Chinese Media Group (CMG) Annual News Awards and Chinese New Year gathering, Chan touched on the challenges faced by newspaper vendors, with rising costs of delivery, shrinking print subscriptions as people switch to digital news, and high turnover among newspaper vendors.

To help vendors cope with the fall in income and rising costs, SPH Media has been giving them a subsidy of S$4 per month for each doorstep delivery to a direct subscriber since April 2024, and will be doing so till March 2025.

In his speech, Chan highlighted the role of journalism in a “post-truth” and “post-literate” world, and stressed CMG’s added role of connecting and supporting the Singaporean Chinese community. 

“We will continue to review what it takes and continue to support our vendors and our partners,” he said.

At the event, which was held at SPH Media, CMG recognised its journalists’ editorial excellence over the past year.

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Chan and SPH Media Trust chairman Khaw Boon Wan presented awards to 22 recipients. 

Yu Mingfei, a journalist at Shin Min Daily News, won the Best News Report award for his story on a basketball coach who allegedly took money from parents to secure their children’s admissions into top secondary schools through the Direct School Admission scheme.

Yu said the newspaper had received a tip-off from a member of the public about the coach.

The 33-year-old said the challenge came in assuring and persuading various parties to speak to him, as some did not want the case to be made known.

It took him a month to investigate and follow up on the case, which eventually grew to involve the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and was addressed in Parliament.

Yu, who has been reporting for Shin Min Daily News for two years, said of his win: “I was surprised and happy. This has motivated me to want to do more as a journalist because I know that when I put in effort, it’ll be rewarding.

“I didn’t expect the story to draw national attention. That’s the value of our profession – to make an impact on society with our work.”

Lianhe Zaobao’s China news associate editor and Beijing correspondent Sim Tze Wei won the Best Feature Story award for Revisiting the Mystery of the Ukraine War – a series of written reports, videos and an interactive online account that shed light on the plight of Ukrainians in the Russia-Ukraine war.

CMG editor-in-chief Lee Huay Leng, who chaired the awards’ judging panel, said: “Now, our annual news awards not only recognise traditional print works, but also include multimedia, allowing audiences to understand news via different formats.”

The other awards handed out at the ceremony were for Best Commentary, Best Video, Best Photo, Best Headline, Best Page Design and Best Visual Design. THE STRAITS TIMES