Thursday, October 23, 2008 17:56
TOC welcomes new members
In Andrew Loh, Events & Announcements, Main Stories, Top Story • 1,087 views • 11 Comments
Dear everyone,
The last few months have been very eventful for The Online Citizen. We have virtually doubled our number of visitors, been featured more in the news, organised public events, have had many emails of encouragement, support and criticism, and many too have come up to us in person to offer pats on the backs.
Indeed, we are humbled and encouraged by the support from all of you.
We thank everyone who has participated and supported us, including those who found us lacking in certain aspects. We will continue to work hard and do better.
We are working on changes to improve TOC further and, hopefully, these will be implemented in the coming weeks and months. For now, we would like to make a few announcements, namely about our members.
Changes to editorial team
Gerald Giam, who has been an integral and important part of TOC right from the beginning, will be stepping down as Deputy Editor. Gerald, who recently became a father, is involved with various non-TOC commitments (including volunteer work) and would like to give more time to these. He will, however, continue to write for TOC as Senior Writer.
Selene Cheng, our very hardworking Sub-Editor, will also have a change of duties on TOC. She will no longer be Sub-Editor. Selene would like to focus on more reporting – a role which she has assumed lately. TOC welcomes this and looks forward to more of Selene’s work in this area.
New sections, new members
TOC will be introducing a new Youth Focus section and a new multimedia team which will be covering events and producing videos.
Youth Focus will be headed by Terence Lee, our Youth Editor. The team of young members are: Adil Hakeen, Alison Liew, Charisse Tay, Cheng Hui, Eddie Choo, Huang Xinyuan, John Ang, Kelvin Lim, Matthias Chia, Pearl Lee, Shawn Teo, Tan Jianwei, Wong Jun Sean, Thng Yiren.
Roderick Chia is in charge of the multimedia development team, and he is assisted by Boris Chan and Rachel Chung. The other members of the team are: Mervin Lee, Rachel Zeng, Teng Jing Wei, Koh Yi Na, Damien Chng, Ma Xian Rong, Sj, Fyrol, Kelvin Choo and Johnathan Tan.
TOC also welcomes several new members and writers to the TOC family. These are: Lim Chih Yang, Andrew Ong, Ravi Philemon, Anthony Neo, Cheong En Min, Lee Song Kwang, Timothy Tan, and Davin Ng.
Welcome on board, guys and gals!
The TOC team is excited about the new year already and is looking forward to serving fellow Singaporeans by speaking up even more. We also look forward to your continued support and encouragement as well.
Many of our members are young Singaporeans. It is our hope that more of you out there will join us in speaking out – whatever your age and background – and help make Singapore a better place for everyone.
Do drop us an email at: theonlinecitizen@gmail.com
Thank you, everyone.
Regards,
Andrew Loh
Deputy Editor
——-
Related posts:
11 Comments
Observer(SG-HK)
Less moderation will be a good improvement. A gracious society of citizenry are more tolerent in differing views even if the messages can be discriminative from time to time. In reality, discrimination and racism exist in all over the world. I believe TOC advocates true Freedom of Speech and Expression and stressed to work towards neutral ground in your publications.
I certainly would hope to see a more balance of reporting (or in this case published articles). To be honest, the ratio is too wide a gap..i.e. most articles seemed to me are anti-govt. As much as I had expressed previously in many of my comments that I do not entirely agree with many of the policies that this current government adopts, there are some deeds that they have done that is worth some credit mention.
In my opinon, lopsided publications is not healthy. If we are (at least I deemed myself as one) strong advocates of Freedom of Speech and Expression, Media Freedom, then I think being impartial and balance in views is critical and abest practice that should be encouraged and upheld.
Thank you and congratulations for achieving the 2 million hits.
theonlinecitizen
Thanks, inspir3d… ;)
Observer,
Some people have told us the same thing – but others find us “too moderate”. Ha.. It’s a balance, I guess, which we have to strike. But I feel that the reason why so many are critical of govt policies is simply because of uncertainty – not enough information is given to the general public. This leads to more questions – which at times may seem “critical”.
But you are right. Perhaps we should provide more space for the “good things” about Singapore. ;)
Andrew
lim
Well done.
Kang Ah Loo
I agree with Andrew that in many aspects access to information is more limited in singapore than other democracies.
How many Press do singaporeans think exist?
CNA, Channel 5 / 8 / U / Okto, Today, NewPaper, STimes : what is the commonality among them?
;)
The 1st world democratic citizens are really amazing – they Buy the news, every day, at $1 a piece, Saturday news. I wonder when everyday news will also be hiked to $1 ? Year end? I think no problem, singaporeans have no problem with all hikes cos they have not objected to it – at least I do not see people at HL park.
Tan So Sen
USA has FOX News & CNN
Singapore has CNA ;)
Davin Ng
FOX News is more of an entertainment news channel instead of being “fair and balanced” as they claimed. Have you seen the kind of garbage they have been broadcasting?
USA has more than just Fox or CNN. NBC, C-SPAN, ABC News and a whole bevy of independent and individual newspapers and news channels.
Cynical
To #2:
Someone asked me lately, surely not supporting PAP shouldn’t mean not supporting their policies? Surely the PAP has some good policies too? It was a good question and I’ve been giving some thought to it.
The conclusion I’ve come to, is that it is hard to support policies when I know that pretty much almost everything the PAP does (at least in recent years) is for economic prosperity for a few, to the detriment of many others. How then, can I find the belief that any policy they put forward is good for the masses? Without belief that the PAP has the people’s interests at heart, it is not possible to support any policy of theirs, or even view them in a neutral light. If they had the people’s interests at heart, I believe that most would be a lot more forgiving and less critical of their mistakes… or at least I would like to think so.
In any case, what good policies have been encouraged lately? The so-called help for the poorest workers who are going to have their already pathetically low pay cut further due to being converted from full time to part time? The nearly 22% hike in electricity costs? The increasing popularity of contract work? (again with less pay and benefits) Or perhaps the ever increasing number of foreign workers? I see no future in Singapore. Do you?
tiredsingaporean
The folks in SG are so badly treated by the party they chosen to look after them all these years, however, even in the time of crisis, not that the garment did offer their help, they even pushes the people further by increasing more taxes from ERP, public transports and electrical hikes, and worst still trying to get away from responsibilties when more than 10,000 citizens’ life savings were being wiped out through the national bank mis-selling products. So, will the PAP still have the guts to ask the people for another 5 more years term? How? Tell Us!
fedupofPAP
This has reference to 2) Observer’s request for a more balance reporting.
I’m all for it if the mainstream mass media do likewise. The fact of the matter is that our mainstream mass media is almost like a govt’s mouthpiece. TOC and some of the other blogs are the only places to give vent to alternative points of view.
The People
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7i-cjgPwOU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdGxXmRFMxE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdJEJRaMQmo
nice work. keep it up