Yet, when you live in Singapore it becomes very hard not to feel resentment against the “Ang Moh” – not only does the government mashinary seem to send the message that “Ang Moh’s” are better, the cultural mentality is such that somehow, you as an Asian are not in the same league as the “Ang Moh,” many of whom I find are no different from me – they merely have better salaries.

I don’t condone the way the blog was written but I can understand the resentment that the people feel and the reactions are only natural. We have to accept that people have views that should be expressed no matter how ugly.

What worries me though is the way in which the worship of the “ang moh,” is matched by a contempt for “Indians,” “Malays” and dare I say “Other Races.” Listen to Singaporeans talk about “Other Races” and you’ll find that there’s a certain air of superiority which is not always merited. Yes, the Bangla labourer has less education than most of us but by and large, he earns and honest living and actually contributes to the economy. Yet, if you talk to your average Singaporean, you’ll find a condescending attitude towards the people who do the dirtiest work in society.

Had the headline read “Ah Neh” instead of “Ang Moh,” I’m sure the reactions would not be a few ugly postings on the net but a lynch mob and sad to say the government will probably condone it, in the same way that it would send the firing squad to defend a Caucasian from the mobs.

I don’t see a reason to close ranks unless she gets beaten up soley for being a singaporean. Other than that, as a person, she has my sympathies for her injuries, her extremely poor command of the english language and her stupidity for inadvertently letting the unexposed to the world, sad, little, angry inferiority-complexed citizens to go on an rampage and vent their defensive, xenophobic rage.

Yes i do sympathise with the victim here, for the injuries caused and the lack of intelligence.

Unfortunately everyone has now just gotten a little more stupid and wasted time over this.

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

Nowhere have I stated that TOC should compete with the likes of SPH. I understand that it’s a big task. In fact, what you guys are doing at TOC is already commendable, so keep up the good work. All I am saying is that to compete with mainstream media, you need radio and video elements. I see mrbrown.com as a tiny step in this direction.

Sincerely yours,
Zhang

I am always a little wary of the comparison which some people make between TOC and the mainstream media. Personally, I do not see TOC challenging or being able to challenge the MSM. Although I, and my colleagues, are flattered at the comparison somewhat, the truth is that there is a vast gap between TOC and SPH and Mediacorp.

I think we have to keep in mind a few things:

1. TOC is run by volunteers who have full time occupation elsewhere.

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

3. The resources we have at TOC is miniscule.

Written articles take up less time than video or audio, most of the time. While I do not discount TOC doing the latter in the future, it is at present not very viable.

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.

It really would be a David and Goliath scenario. In fact, it is.

Regards,
Andrew Loh

Thanks for your kind remarks and invitation. Actually, I would be interested in a project involving a “LIVE” form of alternative media, i.e. something along the lines of Internet radio and TV. Don’t get me wrong, I believe what you guys are doing at TOC are commendable. However, there is only this much people who are readers of Internet content who would bother to pore through written texts.

mrbrown.com is a step in this direction, however, he does the occasional podcast that pokes fun at certain government policies. Still, it’s a small step. Definitely, there is a larger population out there who likes an interactive sort of media. This is why mrbrown.com is immensely popular.

Frankly, I have been involved in print media all my life, and I thought that it would be good to go on to new challenges like radio and video editing. I have a friend who is trained in this area, and I think it will be good for me to learn from him. Thus, I would see myself more as working with the likes of mrbrown rather than with a print media (which I do a living already).

I think the way for an alternative media to go in competing with the likes of SPH/STOMP is to go straight for the jugular, and that means going beyond the usual print and venture into alternative video and radio. That is the beauty of the Internet.

Sincerely yours,
Zhang

I couldn’t agree with you more. You should come on board my kettle of fish and help make it grow =) Could do with someone of your experience on board. If you think there’re blind spots in what we’re trying to do with TOC now, I’ll be the first to tell you you’re right. Help us plug them. Drop us an email.

Zheng Xi

With regards to STOMP, frankly, I am not bothered with what ST wrote about STOMP or what it’s being advertised as in the local media. They can devote an entire Sunday Times to it for all I care. I don’t base my criteria on a particular gospel piece (if you are referring to ST). Like how you critically evaluated STOMP, the same set of critical evaluation should be applied to ST to see if the picture they paint of STOMP is true.

Yes, maybe the media has painted STOMP to be having a citizen journalism form, but suffice to say, I always look at substance. Sometimes, I think we cannot always judge a book by its cover. I am calling a spade a spade. If something doesn’t have a substance of citizen journalism, then it doesn’t have it. No use being attached to its form.

Even if the creators of STOMP intend it to be a “showpiece” of citizen journalism, I guess it’s not possible for them to achieve this. STOMP merely wants to increase its readership. Suffice to say, they are walking the route of “controversy creates cash” like how some of those tabloids function. Just look at the type of readers you have there. They are your mundane uncles, aunties, ah laos, ah beng, ah seng, school kids, youths, teenagers and some working adults engaging in some form of mundane banter. It’s like any other gossip corner where you find all sorts of trash, hyperbole, sensationalism and what-not. Definitely, TOC is a different kettle of fish from STOMP.

Sincerely yours,
Zhang

I think we agree with what STOMP can’t do and is doing wrong. However, you’re wrong about what it’s holding itself out to be.

I mean, there were four page feature writeups in Saturday Insight when STOMP first came out touting it to be the next big thing in citizen journalism. How did you miss that?

But yes, as you’ve pointed out, it’s not really citizen ‘journalism’ in any meaningful sense.

To answer your questions about TOC, we have one Editor (Toon Joo) with extensive editorial writing experience.

The rest of us are really part time writers who aren’t holding ourselves out to be journalists. I have no formal journalistic training. However, we realize that there are certain standards our readers expect from us, and we constantly try to meet these. So naturally we do vet for a minimum standard of readability.

I think your comparison’s slightly off point though: reagardless of editorial structure or submission policy we just deal with different content.

Can’t really compare The Economist with GQ.

Let me clarify a bit on my stand on the nature of “citizen journalism” as far as STOMP is concerned.

Simply put, STOMP does not have the capability to act as on a “citizen jounalism” platform. One, it doesn’t have a quality control as far as article submission is concerned. Two, STOMP if you observe carefully works more on a Citizenship blogging platform as opposed to “citizen journalism”. This goes back to my earlier point on quality control. It more or less acts as a repository for citizens to blog accounts on their lives. I am sure you know that there is a difference between journalism and blogging, with the former requiring more research, investigation, together with a high level of integrity and honesty. Third, if you want me to speculate, the reason why STOMP functions on a citizenship blogging platform is to appeal to a large market of bloggers and writers. Perhaps, the apparent lack of quality control for writers (resulting in more trash writing) might be a deliberate bid to cast a wider net to attract writers out there, and the trash goes along. This is unlike TOC, where you have writers with some training in journalism. You even require writers to submit their written works right?

Sincerely yours
Zhang

You associated my writing of the flaws in foreign talent policy with the word “racist invective”. Let’s get this clear. There is no such thing as a perfect policy and all policies have their flaws. And if you call yourself a real journalist, why don’t you consult your colleague, Leong Sze Hian. He may tell you a little bit on the employment situation in Singapore. Yes, I stand by my point that as a result of similarly talented foreigners demanding lower wages, the latter tend to be hired as compared to locals. It’s not the case of foreigners being really more talented in that sense.

Lastly, if you want to say that what I did constitutes racism, please show where have I targeted a particular racial group of foreigner. Foreigners in Singapore are made up of chinese, Indians, Jews, etc, many races.

Sincerely yours,
Zhang