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SPH Editor Looking A Bit Silly Again

Are bloggers journalists? Leslie Fong, an SPH editor, had this to say:

“No! Emphatically not! Whether in writing news stories or features, properly trained journalists check and double-check their facts, set these in context, work in relevant background information, insist on objectivity and balance, organise their material so their account flows smoothly and logically, and use temperate language unless there is a powerful reason to resort to strong words. Even in offering views, they ensure that the opinions expressed are based on fact, failing which, as any libel lawyer would tell you, what they write cannot be defended as fair comment.

Bloggers, on the other hand, just sound off as they please. They are not bound by professional standards and ethics, and are responsible to no one but themselves. So you read them at your own risk, or peril. Newspaper editors who give bloggers space, or even prominence, in their pages, in the hope that this will attract younger readers, are doing damage to their calling.”

Meanwhile, hot off the international press, we have this from AFP:

Yangon bloggers outsmart Myanmar censors
Agence France-Presse
Posted date: September 25, 2007

BANGKOK -- Savvy young bloggers in Myanmar are breaking through the military junta's tight Internet controls to post photos and videos of swelling anti-government protests, experts said Tuesday.

The government blocks almost every website that carries news or information about the Southeast Asian country, and even bars access to web-based email.

But an army of young techies in Yangon works around the clock to circumvent the censors, posting pictures and videos on blogs almost as soon as the protests happen.

Many of these images have been picked up by mainstream news organizations, because bloggers have managed to capture images that no one else can get.

When Myanmar's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi stepped outside her home in Yangon to greet marching monks and supporters on Saturday, the only pictures of the landmark moment were posted on blogs.

....... These bloggers are mainly young university students in Yangon who have made it their mission to post messages and pictures since the anti-junta rallies broke out there on August 19, he said.

..... No foreign journalist has obtained a visa to enter Myanmar, under military since 1962, since the start of the anti-junta rallies, rights groups said.

Sounds like the whole world is depending on Yangon bloggers for news of what's happening in Myanmar. Who has time to think about Leslie Fong? He's just one of those dinosaurs left behind by the Internet age. Leslie's cocksureness is certainly amusing though. I like this part of his quote:

"Newspaper editors who give bloggers space, or even prominence, in their pages, in the hope that this will attract younger readers, are doing damage to their calling."

It implies that bloggers in general are just very excited and over-eager and just dying to have some space & publicity in a newspaper. Actually, when the Straits Times first launched STOMP and I was invited to join them and go for a photoshoot, my immediate reaction was "Gawd, no."

Maybe one day ... when they have improved themselves. Currently, Singapore's ranking for press freedom (147th out of 167 countries) is just too embarrassingly low.
Gadis Bispak Imut

New Aggregator in Town

This email arrived in my inbox:
“Hi there Mr Wang,

The Singapore Daily is an effort by a group of Singaporeans to help collate and aggregate articles, blog entries and forum discussions on important local current affairs and issues. We hope that our little project can contribute positively to local discourse and help everyone be more informed about current issues. We look forward to your support!

Sincerely
The Singapore Daily Team
singaporedaily.wordpress.com”
And so, soon after the sad demise of Intelligent Singaporean, we have a new aggregator in town. It looks somewhat more varied in its content, and features sports, technology as well as pictures of “chiobu”. Click here to visit.
Gadis Bispak Imut

Rest in Peace

Well, the Intelligent Singaporean is dead. It was a good run, while it lasted.

For those of you who don't know what the Intelligent Singaporean is, well, you obviously don't know the Singapore blogosphere very well. The Intelligent Singaporean, until a few days ago, was a very useful aggregator that regularly provided links to the latest readworthy blog posts about Singapore issues. It was like a central point for exploring what Singapore's sociopolitical bloggers had to say.

Why did the Intelligent Singaporean die? Its owner left a rather cryptic final message. An excerpt:

"Recently certain events have prompted me to re-evaluate the role & relevance of the Intelligent Singaporean in the Singapore socio-political blogosphere. These events have forced me to reconsider whether continuing my aggregation work furthers the original cause of IS.
The original intention of IS was that it would act as a mutual ground of exchange and to facilitate civil discussion about socio-political issues in Singapore. The blogosphere has however evolved rapidly in the intervening year and IS is no longer able to serve the changing needs of the blogosphere today."

Hmmm. Sounds like the kind of message which is intended to let those already in the know, know, and those not already in the know, not know. Well, I don't know, and I shall not speculate.

Guess we will just have to turn to the Singapore Surf now. Which is another website worth visiting.

Gadis Bispak Imut

The New Blogger Challenge

Like Bernard Leong, I was recently interviewed by Jude Yew, a Singaporean PhD student doing research on the impact of new media during the 2006 General Elections.

However, during the interview, I did not feel very interested in talking about last year's General Elections at all. Internet time moves differently, as I told Jude, and the 2006 General Elections already feels like a distant memory to me. So the interview became a more meandering, loosely structured conversation about socio political blogging in Singapore.

I don't even feel like blogging about the interview. Except to say that during the interview, I expressed disappointment at the lack of depth in serious blogging in Singapore.

In my opinion, a disproportionately high proportion of readworthy blog content is being produced by a very small number of S'pore bloggers. The same few usual suspects.

So the health of the Singapore blogosphere is at risk. It is constantly at risk. All it would take is the departure of a few significant bloggers (eg Alex Au, Aaron Ng, Molly Meek, XenoBoy and a few others) and suddenly the tap would run dry.

I said that it was this serious lack of depth that compelled me to continue my own sociopolitical blogging. If there were a sufficient number of readworthy sociopolitical bloggers in Singapore, I would be quite happy to "retire" or blog instead about my other interests (and I have many).

As it is, I often feel grudgingly compelled to blog about social, political and economic issues in Singapore every now and then. Just to keep the flame alive. Keep people thinking. Ensure that the discussion goes on.

And I still get a steady stream of emails from readers, all the time, and more than I can respond to. Readers who say, "Mr Wang, could you please blog about this, could you blog about that, I would appreciate your views etc etc".

It does make me wonder. Why do I still have to do this? By now, surely I've already done more than my fair share of blogospheric National Service. I wish 20 new, serious, sociopolitical bloggers would appear next week or next month to "replace" me. Yes, 20. Out of one entire nation. Is that really too much to ask?

Go on. Take this as a challenge. Be one of the 20 new, serious, sociopolitical bloggers. Start a blog. Write something readworthy. Then email me or put a link in the comment section of this post. I'll publicise you. And if you want it, I'll help you along with tips and suggestions on how to get at least 10,000 readers a month.
Gadis Bispak Imut

Interesting Post

A Dialogue Concerning Two Medias, from the Singapore Angle. It summarises recent developments in Singapore's mainstream media and blogosphere, and makes some attempts to predict the future. An excerpt:

Specialist bloggers changing the landscape of Singapore: A respected blogger (who I cannot mention) once offered this view to me, "Celebrity and controversial blogging is the thing of the past two years, and what comes after that is specialist blogging." Of course, celebrities like Mr Wang, Yawning Bread, Xiaxue and Mr Brown are always there, but the emphasis is changing in view of market forces. Socio-political blogging has suffered with the departure of several high profile young bloggers and the lacklustre activity of other bloggers. Of course, as old bloggers depart, new ones will emerge.

The funny thing is that this post comes at a time when I am already shifting away from sociopolitical blogging, to other kinds of topics that interest me.
Gadis Bispak Imut

Consumers and the Law

I'm back because I just read something interesting on Tomorrow.sg. Apparently the Tomorrow editors have been threatened with legal action.

It's all because they had published, sometime in 2006, a link to someone's article. That person (Gecko) had blogged about his unhappiness about a certain time share company known as Grand Seasons International.

So now Grand Seasons International has sent a lawyer's letter to Tomorrow.sg.

Just to protect myself, I shall first say here that I do not know anything about Grand Seasons International (which is true). I do not know Gecko personally (which is true). I have not spoken to any Tomorrow editor about this matter (which is also true).

Thus I am unable to verify, and I do not know, and I do not assert, and I shall not be taken to have asserted, that GSI, or Gecko, or the Tomorrow editors, has said or has not said, or are saying or are not saying, anything that is true or false.

I shall only say that (1) if you run a retail business, and (2) members of the public have negative feedback about you (whether true or false or accurate or inaccurate), and (3) your response is to threaten them with legal action, then ....

.... well, well, maybe you should rethink your PR policies. Because this kind of behaviour is unlikely to endear you to your potential customers.

While we're on this topic, I wish to comment generally on the topic of consumer rights in Singapore. My further commentary is without reference to any specific companies or individuals. It is just a general explanation of the law in Singapore.

Under Singapore laws, there is a relatively new piece of legislation known as the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act.

If you, as a consumer, feel that you have been the victim of an "unfair practice", then you may have a right to take legal action under this Act. Naturally, if you can find other consumers who have been the victims of the same "unfair practice" by the same perpetrator, and you all go to court together, your case will be very strong.

Section 4 of the Act explains what an unfair practice is:

"It is an unfair practice for a supplier, in relation to a consumer transaction —

(a) to do or say anything, or omit to do or say anything, if as a result a consumer might reasonably be deceived or misled;

(b) to make a false claim;

(c) to take advantage of a consumer if the supplier knows or ought reasonably to know that the consumer —

(i) is not in a position to protect his own interests; or

(ii) is not reasonably able to understand the character, nature, language or effect of the transaction or any matter related to the transaction; or

(d) without limiting the generality of paragraphs (a) to (c), to do anything specified in the Second Schedule."

The Second Schedule goes on to spell out a long list of practices that could constitute an "unfair practice". Since this list is very long (a total of 20), for the sake of brevity, I'll just highlight a few:

SPECIFIC UNFAIR PRACTICES

7. Representing that a price benefit or advantage exists respecting goods or services where the price benefit or advantage does not exist.

9. Representing that a transaction involving goods or services involves or does not involve rights, remedies or obligations where that representation is deceptive or misleading.

11. Taking advantage of a consumer by including in an agreement terms or conditions that are harsh, oppressive or excessively one-sided so as to be unconscionable.

12. Taking advantage of a consumer by exerting undue pressure or undue influence on the consumer to enter into a transaction involving goods or services.

17. Offering gifts, prizes or other free items in connection with the supply of goods or services if the supplier knows or ought to know that the items will not be provided or provided as offered.

20. Using small print to conceal a material fact from the consumer or to mislead a consumer as to a material fact, in connection with the supply of goods or services.

To know more about the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act, you can click here. The full text of the Act is downloadable from here.

Gadis Bispak Imut

Thanks For Reading!

I had 59,541 readers in the first 30 days of May. (More precisely, the aggregate monthly total of unique daily page impressions was 59,541 ... but whatever). It will comfortably cross the 60,000 mark by the end of 31 May.

This would be lower than April's record readership of 67,215 (when the rise in ministerial salaries sent many Singaporeans flocking to the Internet for alternative views).

But May's readership will still be higher than all other previous months. And so Mr Wang thanks you for reading.

And he also says hello to all those new readers who just discovered the Singapore blogosphere (including this blog) in April, and who decided to stick around to read more.

Mr Wang has one more CMFAS exam left to go, so he may not be blogging much in the next two weeks. He'll be back after that. In the meantime, this very helpful aggregator - the Singapore Surf - can help you find your way to worthy reads on the Internet. Or you can visit these excellent blogs:

Yawning Bread
The Online Citizen
NMP Siew Kum Hong
Singabloodypore
No Fear Singapore

(Incidentally, as you can see from the image, it is quite difficult to make a living from Google Adsense earnings).

Bye for now!
Gadis Bispak Imut

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

An interesting post by Elia Diodati - the State of the Singapore Blogosphere, May 2007. Among other things, it summarises the recent departures of several well-known bloggers from the blogosphere. The tentative conclusion is that the Singapore blogosphere is currently in bad shape.

I don't quite agree - there's one element which Elia Diodati didn't notice. In April 2007, there was a massive increase in my readership numbers. Emphasis on "massive". The main driver was the ministers' salary increase. I believe that many other Singapore blogs probably enjoyed a huge increase too.

My theory is that every time one of those types of events occur - eg a James Gomez election saga or the ministers raising their own salaries - a considerable number of Singaporeans flock to the Internet for alternative views, and end up discovering the blogosphere for the first time. In other words, the blogosphere gets a new big crowd of readers.

More importantly, if past experience is anything to go by, these new readers don't go away either. Instead they stick around for more and more. For example, in May 2006 (General Elections), my readership almost doubled, compared to April and March 2006. However, after the General Elections were over, readership numbers did not fall to the pre-May 2006 levels. Instead they stayed constant or resumed growing at a gradual rate.

In other words, controversial events drive up the readership of the Singapore blogosphere. And even after the controversial event is over, the new readers stay around. I guess they discover that many things on the Internet are more readworthy than the Straits Times. So the reach of the blogosphere just keeps expanding over time.

So, if you're new, Mr Wang says hello and welcome. However, do go visit other blogs too because Mr Wang has to start studying for his exams. In other words, Mr Wang won't be blogging very much for the next few weeks.

Gadis Bispak Imut

Debating the Dinosaurs

I was watching TV last night. Well, no, I was actually playing dinosaurs with my kids (as usual, I get to be Tyrannosaurus Rex, heheh) but the TV was on. Suddenly I caught these words being spoken on TV, with great emphasis:

" There are SO many radical blogs out there, like Mr Brown and Mr Wang Says So."

Turns out that a debating competition was being televised. It was between Raffles Institution and Hwa Chong Junior College. The motion was "Are young Singaporeans politically apathetic?".

I think that the Hwa Chong guy was trying to argue that that since "there are SO many radical blogs out there, like Mr Brown and Mr Wang Says So", this proves the motion that young Singaporeans are not politically apathetic.

This is flattering - I'm still young. Not such a dinosaur, after all. Even more flatteringly, Mr Brown is also young. What really makes me laugh is that Mr Brown and I are being described on national television as "radical". Well, I suppose that Singaporeans with strong opinions are still quite rare. Maybe that makes us "radical". But if we do represent the cutting edge of free speech in Singapore, that's a rather sad reflection on our society, actually.

In the past few days, I've been reading a couple of draft essays, meant to be compiled and published as a book by the Institute of Policy Studies later this year. They are not my essays - I've just been invited to read them and give some comments. The book is about digital freedom of speech in Singapore (oh yes, various bloggers are mentioned, including Mr Brown and me). To give you a flavour, here's the opening paragraph of the essay by Tang Hang Wu, an associate professor at the Faculty of Law:

"In 2003, Gary Rodan argued that although there are social groups in Singapore attempting to negotiate `new political spaces for expression on the Internet', these efforts `have generally been modest in their scale and impact'. Randolph Kluver, writing in 2004, took a similar view. Kluver concluded that during the 2001 Singapore General Elections, in terms of a means of outreach, the Internet has not been deployed effectively by the [political] parties in Singapore. However, we know that two to three years are a long time in Internet terms; Rodan's and Kluver's analysis may no longer be accurate to describe the state of digital speech in Singapore. In this paper, I argue that the 2006 Singapore General Election ("2006 GE") demonstrated that the Internet, due to its evolving architecture, has an impact on the laws and norms governing free expression in Singapore."

Somewhere in this essay, I get mentioned for my "intelligent and incisive critique of government policies". Interestingly, I am mentioned right next to Sammyboy, Rockson and Talking Cock. Hey, didn't you know, radicals tend to come in motley crews.

Tell you more next time, about this book and its essays. Mr Wang the Radical Young Dinosaur needs to go brush his teeth, shave and go to work now.
Gadis Bispak Imut

Leaks & Squealers

So many things to blog about. Where shall I start?

PJ is an NUS student who recently interviewed me for her thesis. Among many other questions, she asked me if I would ever enter politics. I laughed and said no.

One reason I gave is that entering politics means you have to be partisan. Once the party has decided on a particular stance on a key issue, you have to abide by it (publicly, at least). Internally you can bicker and argue, but to the public, party members must present a consistent, unified position. That's in the interest of the party.

This is very unappealing to me. I prefer to be true to myself.

Recently, the PAP had a leak (or so it would appear). Someone - and the best guess is that it must have been an insider - leaked some info to the press, which placed the PAP in a most embarrassing position. Serious damage has been done to a key item on the PAP's agenda - their cyberspace communication strategy.

And lest anyone be in doubt, the PAP's cyberspace communication strategy is definitely a key item on their agenda. Otherwise PM Lee wouldn't have talked so much about the Internet in his National Day Rally Speech last year. And the PAP wouldn't have placed a heavyweight minister like Dr Ng Eng Hen as chairman of their "New Media" committee.

How did the Great Leak happen? We don't know for sure, but my guess is that the "leaker" was someone in the PAP. It could have been a member of the rank and file - who disagreed in principle with the "anonymous poster" tactics that the PAP had decided to employ. He felt so strongly about it that he decided to do a very non-partisan thing - secretly tell the Straits Times about it.

And now, we might also guess that there will be a hunt through the party ranks, to find out the person behind the Great Leak. Of course, even assuming that they do find him, dealing with him may be a delicate matter. Firstly, there may be other members who also disagreed with the "anonymous poster" tactics. Secondly, the squealer is unfairly treated, he will be tempted to make new, even louder squeals to the press.

We mustn't presume that every PAP member really has that much to lose, if the party severely reprimands him. Or that every PAP member even wants to be a member forever. Don't forget people like Chia Ti Lik - who left the Young PAP to join the Workers' Party and run in the 2006 Elections.

On a separate point, it's now Day Six since the Great Leak, and we note that the P65 bloggers are still completely silent on the matter. The P65 Blog was conceived as a key PAP tool in communicating with the public in cyberspace, and one might expect that the P65 Blog would be the very first place where the PAP would respond to the story of the Great Leak.

Well, it appears that this expectation is wrong. Maybe the Great Leak has made the P65 bloggers speechless and they just don't know what to say. Maybe they're still working out their next corporate communications step. Or maybe they have decided to stay absolutely silent and hope that this thing will blow over and be forgotten.

If so, then they will learn that the blogosphere does not forget so easily. Unlike yesterday's newspapers, every blog post stays online forever unless the blogger decides to delete them. Years from now, whenever it's relevant to bring it up again, all it takes is a hyperlink to remind readers of the story of the Great Leak.
Gadis Bispak Imut