SPH Media expands key news titles across Singapore's four official languages

SPH Media is expanding its key news titles across Singapore’s four official languages, as the media company looks to make reporting from its different newsrooms accessible to a wider pool of readers.

As part of the initiative, Lianhe Zaobao (LHZB) has launched an English edition, offering English-speaking readers a curated selection of its original Chinese-language reporting, commentary and perspectives. The edition will include stories reflecting the experiences and concerns of Singapore’s Chinese-speaking community.

The launch marks the latest step in SPH Media’s broader multilingual push. The Business Times (BT) launched its Chinese edition in March this year, while The Straits Times (ST) followed with its Chinese edition on 28 October.

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SPH Media said it will progressively make its key news titles available across Singapore’s four official languages, allowing readers to access journalism and perspectives from its different newsrooms in their preferred languages.

Breaking down language barriers with AI

The multilingual push is being supported by artificial intelligence (AI), with SPH Media adopting different translation models depending on the language pair, editorial requirements and needs of each publication.

ST and BT are using AI Singapore’s SEA-LION large language model to automate article translations. According the SPH Media, the model is designed to better understand Southeast Asian languages and cultural contexts, allowing it to account for regional linguistic nuances and references. SPH Media is also working with AI Singapore to improve the quality of translations as the initiative develops.

LHZB’s English edition, meanwhile, uses frontier AI translation models, with selected translated content reviewed by a team of copy-editors for cultural context and clarity before publication.

SPH Media said it will continue refining its AI translation offerings as the technology evolves, while gathering reader feedback on inaccuracies and areas for improvement. The company added that the initiative is intended to bridge language barriers while retaining the editorial identity and community coverage of each publication.

Speaking on the initiative, Kuek Yu Chuang, managing director of SPH Media, said each newsroom brings its own expertise, voice and understanding of the communities it serves.

We want more people to benefit from that reporting, including readers who may not be familiar with the language in which a story was first published.

“By making more of these stories accessible across languages, we hope to help readers see issues from different perspectives and better understand one another. In a country with different languages and cultures, shared stories enrich the multicultural fabric that bind Singaporeans closely together,” he added.

Meanwhile, Lee Huay Leng, editor-in-chief of SPH Media’s Chinese Media Group, said English translations could help younger audiences discover and appreciate Zaobao’s journalism, including those who may not yet be comfortable reading complex articles in Chinese. Lee said: 

We see this initiative not as a replacement for Chinese-language journalism, but as another way of bringing its value to a wider audience.

Wong Wei Kong, editor-in-chief of SPH Media’s English, Malay and Tamil Media Group, added that making ST and BT journalism available in Chinese would allow the publications to share their reporting and analysis more widely.

“Making this journalism available in Chinese allows us to share that knowledge and expertise more widely, so that more readers can benefit from the work of our journalists, regardless of their preferred reading language,” said Wong.

The multilingual initiative comes as SPH Media continues to explore new ways of widening the reach of its content across formats and platforms. Most recently, it partnered Singtel on "CONNECTED", a 24-episode horror-comedy series developed by SPH Content Lab and sponsored by the telco. Marking SPH Media’s first microdrama intellectual property (IP), the series taps local folklore, AI-powered effects and episodic storytelling.

SPH Media has also extended its news content beyond its own platforms and into Singapore’s public transport network. ST’s three- to four-minute audio news bulletins are now available across 68 SMRT stations on the North-South, East-West and Circle lines, as well as the Bukit Panjang LRT, playing at the top of every hour from 7am to 8.30pm, Monday to Saturday. The partnership also brings ST content to commuters through digital out-of-home screens and newspaper vending machines.

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