It comes at no surprise that Singapore Election Watch endured its 3-minutes of misrepresentation on CNA yesterday. Once again, Mediacorp showed Singaporeans why they were deserving of the 140th spot as perscribed by Reporters without Borders, and it reaffirmed the reasons why sites like Singapore Election Watch continue to exist. Was Ms. Farah Abdul Rahim seriously wanting to crack this so-called mind-boggling phenomenon called, 'citizen journalism' or was Mediacorp just running out of ideas once again? It couldn't be the first because if she and all other analysts were truly interested in this, they would have asked to interview the very 'citizen journalists' in the first place! Singapore Election Watch did not receive any such request. What Mediacorp had done is what they always do: bullshit! Notice how Ms. Rahim ended the clip with, "the election may be over, but observers say, it's still too early to asses the impact of the internet on the election." Everyone knows that the major upsurge in the popularity of the opposition parties was correlated with the increasing number of websites dedicated to them!
The true reality is this: Singapore Election Watch doesn't consider itself to be a 'journalist'. The catch-phrase of the month (i.e. citizens journalism) is just another meaningless facade, Mediacorp is willing to hide behind. Indeed, we're citizens, but to call it 'journalism' is to reaffirm Mediacorp's lack of understanding of the term 'journalism', and thererfore, their own objectives as a 'news' outlet. Blogging is not a 'phenomena'; it's a protest against the bullshit Mediacorp throws at Singaporeans.
Singapore Election Watch is not on a propaganda rampage against Mediacorp. We're merely trying to ask the following questions:
Why didn't they request to interview the subjects of their news broadcast?
Why do they continue to dodge our calls for apologies for misrepresenting, and worse, stealing our ideas?
Why did they manipulate the screenshots of Singapore Election Watch?
Why didn't they mention the petition In support of James Gomez and the Workers' Party?
When will they acknowledge their 140th position in the world, and their third world media coverage?
Just look at these!
1. Deleted headings (i.e. Lee Hsien Loong's Territory up for Grabs).
Focused on the Picture of Mr. Lee and the PAP logo.
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Social and political issues related to Singapore and the South East Asia region. A blog which attempts to do so in a non-trivial manner treating opposing views with the respect they deserve. Contributions are welcomed from all regardless of your political persuasion.
15 May 2006
Bloggers persist as Mediacorp bullshits
The extract below is from Singapore Election Watch and is from an article related to its recent appearance on CNA. And as you can guess SEW isn't one bit happy. From images removed or carefully selected to titles of posts mysteriously ommitted...
There is one more important question and maybe even the most critical; why didn't they mention the ban on blogging during elections? Notice there was no mention of it whatsoever. I would imagine such a large number of people blogging (and breaking the "law") as reported by CNA, would certainly be cause for at least a brief comment. Instead the report was sanitised, as if unwanting to report a potential "rebellion". Because Singapore's too nice and clean for that sort of thing right?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I guess this confirms why Singabloodypore didn't get mentioned in the first place!