Unbranded Bread n Butter

Mr Patrick Daniel, editor-in-chief of SPH’s English and Malay Newspapers Division, has sent a letter to Mr Tan Ek Kia, the interim chief executive of rail operator SMRT, to apologise for a fake photograph that was published on SPH’s citizen journalism, STOMP. The citizen journalist, STOMPER “wasabi”, alleged that there was a serious safety breach when the train was moving with its door open for at least one stop when she was travelling from Lakeside to City Hall MRT station.

It has now been revealed that the photo was lifted off Twitter and “wasabi” was never on the train and the entire story was fabricated despite making its way to a SPH website, a company that prides itself for responsible reporting.

STOMPER “wasabi” is STOMP content producer!

What is more shocking is that “wasabi” is no citizen journalist but employed by STOMP as a content producer (more like content fabricator)!! Now we really wonder how much of the content on STOMP is produced/fabricated by their own staff? Why doesn’t STOMP inform its readers that the contributor was a staff and tries to make it seem as if all their content are submitted by members of the public? And if they are employed by STOMP/SPH why are they not subjected to the rigours of fact-checking and journalistic ethics? This stinks of mis-representation.

It is apparent that STOMP would approve and publish just about any story that is sensational without any fact checking from its own content producers.

So would the public ever be aware if STOMP decides to slip in a fabricated story, stir it up online and it gets reported in mainstream newspapers as a legitimate story? They are after all all owned by one company!

Such journalistic standards and practices are deplorable and can be easily abused. For the media to act as effective arm of civil society, the media giant that SPH is should be broken up as it controls a definite majority of the entire spectrum (offline and online) of news production in Singapore. Such monopolistic characteristics are prone to spectacular failures in addition to being poor in representing the diversity of society’s views. Besides STOMP, SPH also has a stake in popular portals like Hardwarezone and Asiaone.

Liar, liar pants on fire

STOMPER “wasabi” aka Ms Samantha Francis, would join a long line of rouge journalists who fabricated stories to get ahead in the game. She is not the first and neither will she be the last. There should be mechanism to prevent and deter this in any respectable system. Currently a student at NTU, English Language and Literature, Samantha is due to graduate this year and I hope this would be a rude wake-up call to her as she joins the workforce.

It takes ten lies to cover-up the first lie. To perpetuate her lie that she was at Lakeside MRT station around 10:15pm on a Tuesday night, Samantha even had the cheek to turn up at the station with SMRT staff to verify her story. She gave a description of what she wore and her ez-link card both of which drew a blank with SMRT CCTV and ez-link systems. OMG! How lame…

Samantha Francis in a dress telling her version of the story

Obviously, she is not very apt at lying or she might be serial liar, albeit a very losuy one. STOMP should get better and smarter content fabricators if they want to stay ahead of the competition!! Haha!!

In this instance, fortunately, the story was verifiable as there were details, time, location and an organisation (i.e. SMRT) which had its own interests to make things right. Imagine if some “citizen journalist” was to submit some unverifiable story like two man fighting at somewhere in Toa Payoh and one spoke with an heavy India Indian accent, get their friends to punch it up while another filmed it.

Ironically, Samantha wrote an article titled “10 ways to become a public nuisance” back in Feb for local entertainment website Fever Avenue, never thinking that she will be the 11th.

Tags: crazies

With anti-foreigner feelings rising in Singapore, like even kuai lan MRT Aunty also just assume anyone nasty is from China, it is good that bloggers are coming together to speak against xenophobia. A Youtube chat show started by local bloggers will start with the topic of xenophobia.

One of the bloggers, former TOC interim editor, Ravi Philemon, would be one of those on the talk show. In the ST article, he was quoted, “There are websites that seem to be driving these ultra-nationalist, anti-foreigner sentiments, and when you see something like that, you get worried.”

Indeed, sensational reporting by websites such as Temasek Times, although entertaining, would undoubtedly fray sentiments. The sentiments maybe anti-foreigner, racism, belittling another religion, anti-gay or feminazis and pro-gay fanatics. Xenophobia is just one facet of a general intolerance we have for people who are different from us.

But sensational reporting is such an essential part of driving readership and traffic to a website. It is barrier and hassle-free and seems to be the norm in cyber space. In fact, even TOC, when it was under Mr Philemon in 2011 was criticized by academic Cherian George for sensationalizing the Seng Han Thong MRT comments. As a result of their reporting, there was a little storm in the teacup where there was not only debate re Seng’s comments but also racial barbs being traded. Indeed, irresponsible reporting can be that spark that starts the fire be it racism, religion, foreigner or sexual orientation.

And about 15 days after the Seng incident, another incident, TOC FB wrote that the Catholic Pope had denounced gay marriages (one wouldn’t expect the Pope to agree with gay marriages would he?) and this invited commentators calling the Pope a bastard, a dog, a Nazi etc. Many people do not read the fine print or the entire article and thus headlines and reporting are important when shaping the ensuing debate.

If one read the Pope’s speech in its entirety, he did not denounce gay marriage outright but he did lay forth his view that the family based on a union of a man and woman is the fundamental cell of every society. Well, it was fair enough to say that he was diplomatic in arguing his views and mobilizing his flock.

Also note that building a more tolerant society also entails some form of restriction on our freedom of expression and this is accentuated by how diverse Singapore is with different races, nationalities, religions and sexual orientations. If everyone would to say or write out the first thing on our minds, it is likely that we will get into more cat fights. So while many bloggers urge for restrain and understanding those different from us; are we, as a cyber community, also willing to give up some our freedom to rant and complain??

All in all, it’s good that Mr Philemon and his friends are coming out to denounce xenophobia …but don’t forget it is so easy to slip back into populist sensational reporting just as it is now trendy to go into anti-xenophobia.

Tags: crazies

Mainstream media and especially traditional print media have been getting quite a fair bit of flak recently. Detractors termed them “government mouthpiece”, while those more hard-hitting would say “government stooge”. Straits Times’ Chief Editor, Warren Fernandez, did the paper no favours when he recently decided that one way to fund the supply of newspapers to 1000 underprivileged families was to auction off a donated Volkswagen car. Sounds good until everyone pointed out to him and say, hey u print tens if not hundreds of thousands of copies everyday so what’s the big deal about helping out folks with free subscriptions?! Others were more devious when they accused him spreading government propaganda! Hahaha!

ST is like a 30 years old car, in fact, it is older than that. It needs a renewal and an overhaul. Its market strategy as a nation-building tool faces strong headwind as it continues to lose young readers to online news both local and foreign. Imagine a young Singaporean not reading local news at all, he could read all the USA dailies, participate in their cyberspace discussion and pretend to be living in California while influencing his friends to vote for Obama this November. Or a youth only reading Temasek Times and Tremeritus. Wonder how would they turn out?

Not that ST, TNP or TODAY is inaccurate, but because of the variety of views that Singaporeans now have, SPH and Mediacorp with its (government) baggage can no longer claim to be representative of the majority of the views out there. Hence, we have a situation where online news and opinions are flourishing because there is no offline newspaper to represent these views. Traditional print media in Singapore can only be so diverse (not much) due to its symbiotic relationship with the government, its ownership, and history. In fact, ironically, mainstream media can be argued to divide Singaporeans with its (narrow) views and epistemology as it pursue its goal of nation-building.

Recently, newly minted MP for Hougang, Mr Png Eng Huat, took a swipe at My Paper and Zaobao for reporting that he had closed 8 companies insinuating that he was a dishonest businessman. Several weeks after the elections, Mr Png disclosed that out of these 8 companies, 4 were registered during the course his work at NTUC where he was made director of these companies. Another company had no links to him. He made good restitution to the remaining 3 companies that he closed.

I couldn’t help but to wonder why he would not disclose these during the campaign period when he had adequate time to do so? He did not trust mainstream media with this information or he did not want to argue down this path with mainstream media as Workers’ Party do not have links to a traditional print newspapers that could echo his views? But on the other hand, the mainstream media does have its fare share of fans like Melanie Ong despite all the brickbats it gets online.

Anti-ISA event That We May Dream Again

Honestly, not that many Singaporeans care about the ISA. Like me, Singaporeans are mostly concerned with bread and butter issues like housing, transport and education. So I was quite surprised when ST actually carried the news that the event has been postponed from 19th May to 2nd June due to the Hougang By-Election. I thought this was the most fantastic publicity that the event could get no matter how active it was online. ST is after all has a higher readership as compared to TOC, Publichouse and Teo Soh Lung’s FB.

And I was equally surprised when ST gave a decent sized article covering the event on its 3rd June edition. Of course, it is not as comprehensive as this or this, but hey the crowd at any condo launch and at an esplanade concert was definitely more larger than the event. And this would go a long way in bringing awareness to the the Marxist Conspiracy and the efforts of the various groups. Much more people read the ST than attend the event.

But as they say, you can’t please everyone. Prominent local blogger Andrew Loh of Publichouse.sg argued that it was wrong of ST to use Marxist Conspiracy without quotation marks (“marxist conspiracy”) as those arrested were never charged in court. He was also unhappy with use of the word ‘suspected’ rather than ‘alleged’. Finding bones in eggs? I personally thought that the article was quite balanced as one could easily read and understand there are differences between the govt and the former detainees and activists. Considering how pro-govt ST can be, I think the coverage was actually pretty decent. Anyway, shall leave it to the readers to judge.

Credit: Martyn See

So there, the verdict is out. No matter what ST does or reports, it is increasingly not being seen as a representative of citizens as we become more diverse (and divisive?). Maybe some ex-journalists with the dough should come out and start a more left-leaning (not leftist) socialist newspaper. Or maybe some local tycoon would sponsor such a meaningful project. It would go a long way in helping build social capital and kick start the process of meaningful public debate. And if that day comes, I hope the govt would approve the license. But if this would to happen, it might also mean that alternative online views would lose some of their appeal.

postscript: I was quite surprised when TNP gave a huge space to report how Mr Brown lost and found her daughter, Faith. No offense to Mr Brown, many people lose their kids (normal and special) everyday for a few hours. But then again, it’s TNP.

Tags: crazies

Just wanted to share with readers a report that said there are fake S$50 circulating. They bear the serial number 1BM226435 , so if you receive 50 bills in the course of your day please do ensure that it is not suspicious and does not bear the above serial number.

Of course, there might be a one in ten million chance that the serial number does belong to A genuine note. So before you start whacking the person, you might want to call the Police.

And the Police has the following advice:

- Do not return the fake bill to the person who gave it to you (Brudder, I think tis ish bruff money, how many chiu got?)

- Take note of the vehicle license plate of the person who gave you the fake bill (sure drive one meh?)

- Try to delay for time, if you can, call the police (Brudder, I think this note is bruff huan, u wait here, I call mata come.)

- Minimise contact with the fake bill, keep it in a envelope or plastic bag and hand it over the Police (they know people like me will try to pass it to the next guy!! Hahaha!!)

- Take note of the sex, race, age, height, build, clothing, accent and distinctive marks such as tattoos or earrings of the person giving you the fake bill (Brudder, can chiu turn around? I need to take a better look at u.)

Tags: crazies

Before I start pissing people off, I would say concerned individuals have the right to campaign and garner public support for Sticker Lady. In fact, personally, it would be great if she is let off with a fine and/or community service, like teaching art to the less privileged kids. On the other hand, most of us can see why some online citizens and our men-in-blue see the necessity in enforcing the law. They do have a valid argument and similarly have their right to their views.

For me, the line that separates Sticker Lady and very imaginative loansharks runners is this thing call ART. And who should decide what constitute art? Where should creative artistic expression take place? Selected void decks? If you ask me, since we are at it, might as well erect a few walls in Speakers’ Corner for graffiti artists to express themselves. Place some planks on these series of walls and you get a free stage! That will save some money for event organisers.

Before we go keyboard thugging, let’s get the hard truths of Sticker Lady:

1.  Pasting stickers on lamp posts and the buttons of pedestrian crossings would not get you charged for vandalism. This is because removing stickers is unlike removing paint or charred items.

2. Sticker Lady did not only stick stickers, she spray painted roads and a building as well. She inked “My Grandfather Road” on roads in the CBD. She also sprayed painted “My Grandfather Building” on Realty Centre located at Enggor St off Anson Rd. It is unsure if the building indeed belongs to her grandfather. These were probably the straws that broke the camel’s back.

3. Sticker Lady would not be caned under Singapore laws because she is a lady.

4. Sticker Lady has not been sentenced. Public pressure, depending on how much of it, could swing the sentencing either way.

5. Singapore would not see an explosion of graffiti artists scrawling all over town if she is let off lightly. Similarly, Police does not go after every kid that scrawls on the back of seats in public buses. Hey, I would be nabbed for inking Yeats’ poems when I was a kid.

Sticker Lady at Realty Centre, Enggor St

I nearly spilled my coffee when I read a blogger write that Sticker Lady reminded her of Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei. Seriously? Like comparing kitten with tiger. Some, like chiou bu opposition, have also argued that Singapore is an uptight society and can do with some organic creative expressions and hell, our city also wouldn’t collapse mah. On the flip side, our city also did not collapse without creative expressions such graffiti mah. Just sayin only. And it didn’t immediately appear to me that Singapore is an uptight society if you just gallivant around town Friday/Saturday night…whatever it is, change would also need time, right.

If a police report was made by the building owners of Realty Centre, then police have to do their job. She is not the first to spray paint a building, there have been precedents. Now let the judiciary do its job. After they do their job maybe someone in the civil service can think of more spaces for artists to express themselves and see whether they can help Sticker Lady explore her talent in the arts or marketing field. Peace out dudes.

Btw, her name is Samantha Lo, and let’s hope it will be just a light touch.

7th June, update: It was reported in Sinmin newspaper last night that police swung into action when members of the public reported that public property around the Robinson Rd area were being vandalised. It did not mention whether the building owner made a report.

Also read here for a very interesting post on the Vandalism Act by Gintai. Pruss one.

Epic LOL!

Tags: crazies