Keep up the great work!

To: Choo Zheng Xi
Editor-in-Chief

i don’t believe that Michelle’s report on her blog, was meant to be a journalistic piece neither was it a “gutter journalism”
as you proudly alleged it to be. i don’t think that was Michelle’s intentions.

Her article was more of a “sharing of a traumatic incident” with us fellow Singaporeans. As such, the report was hers, from her viewpoints and personal experience.

So please, give her a “break”. We Singaporeans need to “close ranks” and support one another.

Oh a piece of WHITE TRASH creating trouble again in our homeland… Get lost WHITE TRASH~! GET A LIFE~!

keuriseudo said on 17 Nov, 2007

yup! this is Singapore. and as long as we Singaporeans are in Singapore, WE ARE KINGS AND MASTERS OVER FOREIGNERS!
THIS IS A WARNING TO ALL FOREIGNERS:
NO ONE… AND I MEAN NO ONE, WOULD EVER TRY TO BE FUNNY WITH THE LOCALS. OTHERWISE, YOU WILL ALL LOSE YOUR PATHETIC FOREIGN ASSESS.
THIS GOES OUT ESPECIALLY TO ALL WHITE TRASH

____________________________________________________
What the hell is with this? That’s way too far.
Isn’t Singapore a multicultural society?
Where have we come to Singapore?
….
I just hope that not everyone is like that.
I have experienced a lot of racism in Singapore
and I have lived here for 7 years.
I know that not everyone is racist but those who are, well they are really messed up.
Get over it..
we’re white, so what?

Also, the video of the aftermath does not show evidence of the alleged assault. In fact, a big part of it shows the accused couple being humiliated and ridiculed. At least 2 uncles were scolding the man with words such as “This is Singapore! You think your country ah!” These are very discriminatory remarks in my opinion. If they had witnessed the alleged assault and were sure he was guilty, it may be acceptable that they scold him, but only pertaining to the incident, and not judging him based on his skin colour. By posting the video, Stomp seems to be condoning such behaviour, and by doing so, incite anti feelings towards foreigners amongst the public.

By referring to Michelle as a “Star” in the headlines, it seems to lead readers to think that she is of a higher status. Just because she is quite well-known in the blogging community and possibly has links to Stomp and media people (see 3rd video of saga at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02qZ_RJ6ejQ where she apparently calls Stomp people), doesn’t mean that Stomp has to write the article in her favour.

To sum it up, poor piece of journalism from Stomp. In fact, this is not the first article on Stomp which I find to be substandard. In general, I have the impression that many stories on Stomp are poorly researched, one-sided and overly-sensationalized, many of which are blatant invasions of people’s privacy. This does not reflect well on SPH’s reputation, especially in its mainstream newspapers. One can argue that this is only the Internet, not to be taken too seriously, but this is flawed thinking, as the articles here receive high readership and there are many advertisements on the printed papers that refer readers to the exact substandard stories on Stomp…

(BTW, I am a Chinese Singaporean and I love Ah Lians… ooops!)

people comment with their own views apparently and there will be biasness without any doubt.

so what are u trying to imply with the comments?

Thanks for the compliment and the encouragement. We will continue to do our best.

To your question. The debate over journalism and blogging and which is which and whether can be the other is somewhat a futile one, in my opinion.

This is for the simple reason that elements of journalism are in blogging as well. The oft-cited reason that blogging is not journalism because journalism requires more indepth research, consideration for society’s wider concerns (racial, religious, for example) and so on does not convince me.

I think blogging/blogs/bloggers and indepth research, etc are not mutually exclusive. Indepth research, for example, is not the exclusive domain of journalism.

I think there are enough bloggers out there, even singaporean ones, to show that bloggers can, do and have done quite impressive work – at times even surpassing their professional journalist counterparts.

Anyway, as I said, my personal view is that the question of whether bloggers can be or are journalists is a futile one. It does not matter, anyway.

Regards,
Andrew Loh

Interesting that you mentioned two things.

1) TOC is just a blog where a few singaporeans come together to write as and when they feel they have something to say.

2) Unless and until we – or anyone else – have a full-time team, I do not think any blog will be able to even begin to challenge the MSM, which by the way, gets delivered to each and every home through many many channels.

I am curious about one thing. To you, is there a distinction between “blogging” and “journalism” or those two to you are pretty much “interchangeable”?

Frankly, to me blogging and journalism are not quite the same as the latter requires more indepth research, investigation, honesty and integrity. Secondly, the tone of writing in a blog is more personalised, i.e. the user adopts his own defacto style of writing, since it is his own online diary, albeit on an exhibitionist platform. For a journalist, this is not the case, as articles are written with the audience in consideration, and due care is taken in the usage of language in such a way to prevent public fallout and misunderstanding from occurring.

Sincerely yours,
Zhang