My Response to Mr Udders

In response to this.

Blogs are the personal sphere/domain of bloggers. If journalists were to engage bloggers on the web in their professional capacity, their actions might be construed as harrassment/bullying. At the same time, print newspapers are the spheres/domains of journalists. Surely their decision to comment on issues in their own domains/spheres cannot be faulted?

I don’t see how leaving some comments in a blog on a personal capacity can be construed as harassment/bullying. She herself wrote of how you and Joel amicably addressed the issue. It would in fact be a sign of humility rather than maintaining the status quo power relations between press and citizen.

Joel could have made his thoughts known at the neutral platform of the talk, but perhaps they were afterthoughts. Would writing to the papers be a reasonable avenue for him to share these afterthoughts? Lynn on the other hand could have easily left a comment on his blog to correct his ‘misconceptions’.

In any other circumstance it would have been more than ok for a journalist to use the print media to express him/herself while an ordinary citizen uses what is accessible to them. But the context is of a journalist writing about how proponents of MSM and NM can actually come together can happily co-exist. By doing what she did, she only maintained the distance between the two.

I hope the ideal for you isn't one where bloggers are quoted all the time in the mainstream media? I'd be even more ashamed to read The Straits Times if Xiaxue/Dawn Yang became the authoritative voices on all and sundry.

I think you misunderstood my statement. I am not calling for more referencing of blogs. I am merely stating that the recognition that something exists is not the same as being inclusive.

Your blog post ("online chatter") is in response to the journalist's column("mainstream media stories"), no? So I don't think it's a question of resource gathering per se but one of discussion - which medium provides the most reaction/responses for debate: online or offline? My guess is the latter.

No it is not. She mentioned somewhere in the article that: “self-professed media pundits…. seem to be forgetting two things: one that a large chunk of what they write about comes from initial reporting done by the daily mainstream media….”. This was her retort for those that claim alternative media trumps the mainstream media. If this is not a defensive statement I don’t know what is.

I think the journalist's point was that MSN and NM can be happy bedfellows and share the process of information dissemination. BTW, "to offer alternative readings of news" IS to be an "alternative news source", if you take the definition of news in its broader sense.

Yes, I agree with you.

Actually, the journalist did. But you... misread, I'm afraid. Read the article again and this time, read it with the mindset that the journalist is not slamming NM... The journalist is very supportive of NM that is rational, not rash.

I did not say she was slamming or belittling NM. Neither did I call for her to defend/ champion NM. The essence of my post was that her actions (medium) run counter to her calls (message) for inclusion, co-operation, mutual respect and maturity.

Appreciate your remarks though :)

The Reason Why Old and New Media Remain Strange Bedfellows

There was an interesting ST article today titled “Old and new media don’t have to be strange bedfellows” by journalist Lynn Lee. I do not subscribe to the online version of the paper and therefore am unable to republish the article in full.

The reason I found it so interesting was that the article, not so much the contents of it but rather the article as an object, was symptomatic of the estranged relationship between the old and new media as is experienced in Singapore. To borrow Marshall Mcluhan’s “the medium is the message”, the decision by the ST journalist to ‘engage’ a blogger through the national press demonstrated why there remains a divide between the old and new media advocates.

Before I confuse everyone further, let me briefly provide the context.

The incident that triggered the article was a talk conducted by two ST journalists on “Journalistic Integrity” at a JC. The invited journalists took issue with a blog entry of the event by an attendee of the talk, one Joel Tan. I wont get into the details of his blog entry as it can be read here.

The journalists were upset with the blogger for unfairly dismissing them without asking where they stood on specific issues and accused him of misquoting them and taking their comments out of context.

The journalist was critical of the blogger for not directly engaging them during the Q&A portion of the talk. A fair enough point if you ask me. But what proved to be puzzling was that instead of engaging the blogger on his blog, the journalists chose to instead write an article on the national broadsheet.

This decision surely runs counter to her self-righteous claim that the mainstream media is being more “more inclusive of alternative media” and seeks to “coexist and work” with alternative media. Admitting that there are alternative voices and haphazardly citing them from time to time is NOT being inclusive.

And as for her assertion that much of online chatter is reactive to mainstream media stories, its nothing much to boast about considering the resources they have at their disposal, not to mention that its their job. It would be like a nationally-funded professional bodybuilder scoffing at the attempts of ordinary folks working out in a gym. And lets not forget that they readily admitted that they thrawl through online forums to gather scoops.

When will journalists realize that it is not our intention to rival them in news gathering? We cite mainstream media articles not to claim ownership of news stories but to offer alternative readings of news. It is NOT an attempt to be alternative news sources.

But let us put aside this childish bickering over who is more credible, objective and what not and go back to my point about the “medium being the message”. The reason old and new media advocates are strange bedfellows is due to the fact that both parties do not wish or are unable to engage each other in their respective platforms. Lynn Lee had a chance to cross that bridge but she chose not to; making her article an insincere monologue.

One Nation Under Lee

A very concise alternate reading of Singapore history presented by local activist Seelan Palay.

Although the film lacks the production values of PAP-sanctioned national education documentaries, it is a sincere attempt to capture a darker reality of Singapore we dare not acknowledge; at least not openly.

Critics will probably argue that it is heavily skewed towards promoting the SDP's campaign of civil disobedience. And that certain images or quotations were taken out of context and misrepresented.

What i would say to such people is that that is exactly what freedom of speech is all about. When we have access to the products of freedom of speech, we will naturely be presented with information from opposing poles. But there can be no true objectively without full-blown subjectively.

More Govt Lapses

This latest revelation of public fund mismanagement is strangely reminiscent of the MSK debacle.

This Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reminds me of the Committee of Inquiry (COI) set up by the MHA to investigate into MSK’s escape. The PAC comprises a group of Members of Parliament that acts like the "Audit Committee" of the Government.

“Acts” is the operative word as it really has no real authority or expertise to conduct audit checks. In fact, they merely consider the Auditor-General's Report, and examine the Government Financial Statements and other accounts which are presented to the Parliament.

This is of course not the first time we are hearing of this committee.

It is really uniquely Singapore for government watchdog groups comprising of ruling party members.

In the first revelation of public fund mismanagement, it was positively constructed as lapses caught in time and corrected. For MSK, it is lucky that his escape uncovered lapses due to Singaporean’s complacency, and this is duly corrected as well.

End of the day, we are still left wondering if there were more alarming lapses that have not been revealed. We all remember how some golden taps unmasked sordid misappropriation of charitable contributions at the NKF.

Will glass panels be the downfall of the supreme court?

$1.5m of govt fund mismanagement uncovered by public accounts
panel
By Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia Posted: 08 May 2008 2354 hrs

SINGAPORE: The Health Ministry overpaid nearly S$180,000 of financial
aid to people without realising they had died.

This was one of public fund lapses uncovered, according to a six-page
report by the Public Accounts Committee, a parliamentary watchdog which
scrutinises the annual financial statements of government bodies.

The report highlighted the various lapses of three government ministries, a
statutory board and the Supreme Court.

The Health Ministry was particularly cited for overpaying S$178,150 of financial aid to beneficiaries who had died. After being informed of the lapse, the ministry said it had since recovered S$85,200.

However, the rest remains unclaimed since the policy is not to recover payouts made up to 3 months of a person's death.

The ministry said it will review its policy of allowing a grace period, and
has since agreed to work with the Ministry of Home Affairs to obtain death
records of beneficiaries on a monthly basis.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also found to have S$1.56m of unclaimed medical bills. These were incurred since 2003, during three overseas missions. The Ministry says it is currently filing the claims to its insurance company.

The report also uncovered unnecessary expenditure of S$30,789 by the Supreme Court for replacing glass panels. Administrators have since recovered the amount from the contractors.

The Manpower Ministry was also found to have made excessive advances to a building management agent. The ministry said the law does not allow it to claim interest on the excessive advances paid.

However, a new contract, effective 2006, states that payments can only be
made after works are carried out by contractors. Other safeguards, such as a
banker's guarantee, are also in place to make sure advances to contractors can
be recovered.

The InfoComm Development Authority was found to have mismanaged cash surpluses.

Under the current legal system, not all government bodies are required to be inspected by the Auditor-General.

But the latest report recommends an expansion. So the Auditor-General will
look into 18 statutory boards in the coming financial year, an increase from the
previous 13. - CNA/ir

Malaysian Politicians Blogging for Blogging Sake

Have they not learnt from our PAP's pathetic attempts at blogging (e.g. George Yeo, P65, Ypap blog... )


The reason why they dont work and why the BN will also fail miserably is because political blogging is more than just owning a blog.

• It is about no holds barred, but respectful, engagement with anyone on cyberspace.


• It is about putting yourself out there to criticisms and alternative thoughts.


• It is about leveling the playing field between agents of disparate status and power.


• It is where ideas and thoughts have more currency than position.

It is most definately NOT about just creating a new channel meerly to propagate your message - another podium for you to speak and be heard.

If there is no engagement, there can be no enlightenment.

April 24, 2008
UPFRONT
BN turns to blogging in a belated turnaround
By Hazlin Hassan

KUALA LUMPUR - MALAYSIA'S political leaders are rushing to set up blogs and increase their postings on existing ones after recent polls showed how effective the Internet has been.

Those joining the bandwagon include former Selangor menteri besar Khir Toyo, Malacca Menteri Besar Ali Rustam and former health minister Chua Soi Lek of the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA).


The move signals a dramatic turnaround because until recently, senior political leaders dismissed bloggers as rumour-mongers and even described some as 'stupid' and 'monkeys'. The authorities have also detained some bloggers for allegedly libellous or seditious postings.

Many of Malaysia's popular blogs - such as rockybru.blogspot.com by prominent blogger Ahiruddin Atan, jeffooi.com by well-known blogger-turned-politician Jeff Ooi, rantingsbymm.blogspot.com by former premier Mahathir Mohamad's daughter Marina, and several others - contain critical commentary on the government.

Some have been blamed for the unprecedented losses of the Barisan Nasional (BN) government in the March general election, which also saw blogger Jeff Ooi being elected to Parliament on an opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) ticket.

Critics accused BN and its politicians of being out of touch with voters, particularly the young, most of whom seem to rely on the Internet for information these days.

After the election, blogging has been made mandatory for Umno Youth candidates contesting national posts, and the mainstream media and some bloggers have been publicising some of the new blogs.

Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan, secretary-general of the youth wing, told The Straits Times: 'We have to accept now that as far as the younger generation is concerned, they are very much suspicious of the mainstream media. This is one way to tackle that. Better late than never.'

He has a bilingual blog, www.mpkotabelud.blogspot. com, in Malay and English, and updates it three times a day.

Deputy Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin started his website, www.rembau.net.my, before the election. Now he also has an active Facebook profile and there is one for his father-in-law, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, as well.

Another new face in cyberspace is former Selangor strongman Dr Khir, who lost his seat and his state to the opposition.

But instead of wooing much-needed support for Umno, one of the first things he did on his blog was to urge Datuk Seri Abdullah to step down.

The Prime Minister 'must be brave enough to accept the facts and create an exit plan', Dr Khir wrote on his Malay-language website www.drkhir.blogspot.com. 'This transition can be done in the near future or in a longer period.

However, it should not take too long because this could jeopardise the administration and the preparations of the party for the next election.'

On average, he receives a couple of hundred comments on each entry.

Ms Tricia Yeoh, director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies, an independent research institute in Kuala Lumpur, said: 'Although initially critical of blogging as a tool of dissidents, the BN politicians now realise the importance of open, honest, rational dialogue and conversation between leader and voter.'

But it may be too late for the ruling coalition. Opposition DAP leader Lim Kit Siang has been blogging since 1997 at blog.limkitsiang.com and his Facebook profile has more than 2,000 'friends'.

De facto opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's Facebook site is even more of a hit and he has more than 4,000 online friends.

Another politician who has taken to the Internet is Datuk Chua, who resigned after a sex DVD scandal. He has started a bilingual blog in Chinese and English at drchua9.blogspot.com and has been blogging almost every day. He has an online survey asking visitors to say if it is fair for a leader to step down after a bad loss in the general election.

Not everyone has that kind of time, though.

Malacca Menteri Besar Ali Rustam logs on only about once a week. And he has disabled the comments section of his blog after receiving hundreds of reactions online following a comment he made on the need to clean up pig farms in Selangor.

His remarks provoked a flood of criticism, mostly for 'playing up racial sentiments'. Malay Muslims shun pigs on religious grounds.

Sceptics complain about the quality of blogs though, with one saying that 'the mainstream blogs are just as bad as the mainstream press'.

Editor of New Media at The Star newspaper A. Asohan wrote in a Sunday editorial about the move: 'As a cranky and cynical journalist, it is my duty to burst this bubble. It's not going to work.

'You want to counter all that criticism on the Net? Easy: don't give people any ammunition. Don't say stupid things, don't release ill-conceived statements, don't contradict yourself, don't harp on issues that only you seem concerned about,' he said.

Political analyst James Wong, however, believes that the technology should not be ignored. 'We are now dealing with a mass society, it's no more walking around your kampung, talking face-to-face,' he told The Straits Times.

'We have to address the crowds in an everyday sense. The BN totally misunderstood blogging and blogs before the election. The question of whether blogging is good or bad is like saying television is bad. Technology is neutral.'
hazlinh@sph.com.sg

A Toilet With A View - COI Report on MSK Escape

The COI report is out and Wong Kan Seng has delivered his statement in parliament this afternoon. I’ve looked through the speech and I must say that im shocked, dumbfounded and stupefied. Here are some of snippets of the speech and my reactions to them.

A Toilet with a view

Para 23 – […] ISD had instructed the vendor to install grilles for all windows. But when the renovation works were carried out in 2007, this toilet ventilation window was not grilled up. This arose due to a difference in understanding between ISD and the vendor over exactly which windows were to be secured with grilles.

If the instructions were for ALL windows to be grilled, how can there be a misunderstanding over exactly WHICH windows?? This calls into question the Government’s tendering processes and selection criteria. Were the contractors the cheapest tender? Have they been used for other installations of national interest?

How many guards does it take to knock a door?

Para 16 to 17 – […] After a few minutes, the guard felt that Mas Selamat was taking too long. He alerted the other guard standing outside the toilet, who then turned to the Special Duty Operative who was outside. The Special Duty Operative, who is female, subsequently asked Mas Selamat’s male Assistant Case Officer to check on Mas Selamat as he was in a male toilet.

The COI correctly pointed out that the guards failed in their duties. But even I can tell you that! The first gurkha should have knocked to ask why was he taking so long (he did not). The second gurkha should have asked the first gurkha to do that (he did not). The female officer should have asked the gurkhas to do that (she did not). How many guards does it take to knock a door? Apparently the answer is 4.

Now you see it, no you don’t

Para 31 is rather long so I shall just summarize it as: there were 2 cctv cameras mounted where Mas climbed out. But there was no recording or active monitoring. But they are very good cameras because they were being upgraded with motion-detectors. But they were not fixed yet.

I really have to question the Ministry’s budget allocation. Equipping cctv cameras with motion detectors most definitely does not come cheap. But this is money well spent if they are turned on wouldn’t you think. What really bugs me is that if you are already spending so much to upgrade the surveillance systems, why be stingy with backups or redundancy systems. Couldn’t the old systems remain active while testing new ones?

The buck stops with you, not me

Para 55 – […] The COI observed that no one individual had full control to bring
about the confluence of the material factors at the time of Mas Selamat’s
escape.

I completely disagree with this point. If anyone, the superintendent had the control to prevent the escape from happening. He may not have been the guard who lost his line of sight of Mas Selamat, but he as the ‘CO of the camp’ (using SAF terminology as it was mentioned that he held a rank equivalent to an Lieutenant Colonel), would be responsible for setting up the centre’s S.O.Ps and ensuring that the physical security (grilles, fences, cctvs..etc) are shipshape.

Para 66 – […] I have asked Director ISD to examine the roles not only of the
WRDC junior officers but also to go up the chain of command and include the
supervisory and management levels of WRDC as well…

I’m glad that junior officers will not be the only ones singled out for blame. As mentioned above, out of all identified, surely the superintendent would have a ‘helicopter’ view of the entire centre.

A titan of a man is back in the game

2008 seems to be building up as the year of the underdog.

We have seen our brothers across the causeway dramatically shake up Malaysian politics by bringing 5 states under opposition control.

We see growing optimism and desire for change in the US presidential elections where i believe we might see the first woman or black US president.

And now we see the return of JBJ into political life. Well, the paper work is done anyway.

Lets beat the drums as we approach 2011. Lets make it our year.

Opposition figure JB Jeyaretnam registers his new Reform
PartyBy Channel NewsAsia Posted: 18 April 2008 1935 hrs

SINGAPORE: Opposition figure JB Jeyaretnam submitted an
application on Thursday to register the new Reform Party as a political
party.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, the 82-year-old said he has
submitted 10 names - which is the minimum number required to form a political
party.

He said the application would take two months to process and he
does not foresee any difficulties in getting his application approved. Mr
Jeyaretnam added he will assume the role of the Reform Party's
secretary-general.

He made political history in 1981 when he became the first opposition politician elected to parliament. He was then secretary-general of the Workers' Party.

A lawyer, he was disbarred when he was declared a bankrupt in 2001 after failing to pay libel damages to members of the PAP, including former prime minister Goh Chok Tong.

He emerged from bankruptcy in May last year, after paying off S$233,255 in damages from defamation lawsuits filed by Singapore's leaders. He was also reinstated to the Bar and has resumed legal practice.

Being solvent again makes him eligible to run in elections. -
AFP/vm