Dr Mumbo

75 Singapore publishers ‘get lucky’ at marathon MPAS awards show

Dr Mumbo loves a good industry awards show, which is why he likes living in Singapore where there seem to be so many.

Ever the social butterfly, Dr M decided to make an appearance at the Media Publishers Association of Singapore, an event that celebrates the very best of Singaporean journalism across 75 categories. Yes, you heard that right – 75 categories. Surely, a record number for a Singapore awards show.

Within these illustrious categories were accolades for the usual suspects: Website of the Year, Business​ ​Trade​ ​Media​ ​of​ ​the​ ​Year and Sports​ ​Media​ ​of​ ​the​ ​Year – that sort of thing.

And then there were some Dr Mumbo wasn’t quite expecting such as Animals​ ​&​ ​Pets​ ​Media​ ​of​ ​the​ ​Year, Watch​ ​&​ ​Jewellery​ ​Media​ ​of​ ​the​ ​Year and, curiously, Yacht​ ​Media​ ​of​ ​the​ ​Year. Dr M imagines these were highly-contested categories, although no shortlists were published so it was impossible to tell.

During the evening Dr Mumbo decided to award his own prize to the person who achieved the ‘Most Appearances on the Stage’. The winner was one Wayne Cheong, associate editor at Esquire Singapore. He went up a handful of times and ran out of acceptance speeches. At one stage, he even thanked the band for being there. What a lovely guy.

There was the onstage soundtrack of Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’, again and again every single time a winner went onstage to collect an award. There were emotional speeches calling on publishers to “stick together” to avoid being eaten alive by Google and Facebook. There were even stacks of unread magazines sat on tables outside the ballroom.

Who said traditional publishing is a dying industry? Certainly not Dr Mumbo anyway. Taxi.

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