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https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2019/04/25/details-revealed-by-former-editor-of-the-new-paper-of-how-the-press-was-manipulated-by-pap-in-1997-to-fix-workers-party-politicians/ Bertha Henson former Associate Editor of The Straits Times wrote on her blog, Bertha Harian, about the upcoming book written by former editor of The New Paper, Mr P N Balji called The Reluctant Editor. The book promises stories from Mr Balji’s times as editor in both Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) Mediacorp – described by Ms Henson as ‘nuggets of information that had been kept from the public eye’. The Reluctant Editor, says Ms Henson, contains stories about the relationship between the Government and local media which were generally not openly talked about, stories that she thought ‘journalists would take to their graves’. The fact that he, and others like him in the past, chose to share these stories is a mark of courage, she said. One story in particular that Mr Balji expands on in his book which Ms Henson was part of is the incident of the 1997 General Elections when The New Paper ran a story on their front page about the police reports filed against People’s Action party ministers by Workers’ Party politicians Tang Liang Hong and JB Jeyaretman. ADVERTISEMENT What happened in 1997? Before we can go further, we need to know what happened in 1997. The General Election that year was notable for the incident involving Tang Liang Hong who now live in exile. At the time, Mr Tang stood for elections alongside the late JB Jeyaretnam in Cheng San GRC. Mr Tang was attacked constantly by the PAP for being an anti-Christian Chinese chauvanist. The day before polling day, WP held a rally during which Mr Jeyaretnam had said that police reports had been filed against 11 members of the PAP. He said, ““Mr Tang Liang Hong has just placed before me two reports he has made to the police against, you know, Mr Goh Chok Tong and his team”. However, he did not go into further detail. People were guessing over the content of the report but there was no way for journalist to get their hands on it unless Mr Jeyaretnam handed it over to them directly. The police, after all, do not release report details on request. Ms Henson went on to describe how the next day, Mr Balji received a home call suggesting that he could get the police reports. He need only ask. Ms Henson highlighted, “This was a strange offer of a scoop offered to TNP, a newspaper which at that time was sold at lunch-time.” She continued, “Balji admits that the idea of a scoop stirred journalistic passions. Which editor would not welcome the chance to get one step ahead of its rivals, especially the broadsheet Straits Times, which had already gone to print by then?” As the deputy at the time, Ms Henson got in touch with the police to get the report but was denied. Mr Balji then made a phone call and a little later, the reports were faxed to them. TNP published the reports on their front page that day. The aftermath Ms Henson says that while she and Mr Balji did not get in trouble for publishing the police reports, Mr Tang and Mr Jeyaretnam did. While WP earned a non-constituentcy MP seat which Mr Jeyaretnam took, he was also slapped with 11 suits. Ms Henson said, “That was when it began to dawn on us that we had been made use of to disseminate a supposed libel to an even wider audience, which could mean higher damages if the PAP side won.” What followed was a massive legal battle waged against Mr Tang and Mr Jeyaretnam by the PAP leaders of the Singapore government for alleged defamation. Ms Henson recalled at the time that Mr Balji ‘wondered if he would be called to the stand by the defence to declare how he had obtained the reports’ but he was never summoned. “Nobody talked about the content of the reports; just its announcement,” she wrote. The courts found Mr Jeyaretnam liable and ordered him to pay $20,000 in damages. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong at the time described that sentence as “derisory”. The PAP then appealed and the damages were raised to S$100,000 plus $20,000 in costs. As Ms Henson says, Mr Tan had fled the country and Mr Jeyaretnam was ‘taken to the cleaners’. In 2001 he was declared bankrupt after failing to meet his instalment payments. Consequently, he lost his NCMP seat as undischarged bankrupts are barred from serving in Parliament. He couldn’t stand for the 2001 general elections and in October of that year, he resigned as Secretary General of the WP. Regret over the decision to publish Over 20 years later, Ms Henson says the events still ‘grated’ on her. She said, “Playing it back, I wondered if we could have said no. Our journalistic instincts, scoop mentality and deadline pressure overwhelmed our ethics. We wanted to be first with the story. But we found that the fleeting euphoria was nothing compared to the stone that had been lodged in our hearts since. We did a terrible thing.” In the Particulars of the Statement of Claim served on 21 July 1997, the late Lee Kuan Yew conceded for the first time that he and ESM Goh Chok Tong who was then Prime Minister had procured the release of the police reports. The ESM Goh made a similar admission in an affidavit he swore in August 1997. This was also pointed out by Mr Tang in an interview he had given to freelance writer Chris Lydgate (originally commissioned by Asia Online but never publish) which was eventually posted on the Singapore Election blog in 2006. Similarly, the Singapore-Window website recounted Mr Tang’s lawyer George Carmen’s statement to the High Court which pointed out the ‘fundamental error in the case’. He noted that while under oath, PM Goh has admitted in Court that he has authorised Mr Lee Kuan Yew to release Mr Tang’s police reports. “Mr Carman said the prime minister and Mr Lee, his predecessor, “shot themselves in the foot” by releasing the report over which they are now seeking legal damages,” said the site. The press is a tool for politicans As it was already established way back then that it was Mr Goh who had authorised the release of the reports to the press. This, coupled with Mr Balji’s recounting of the events in his book and Ms Henson’s sharing on her blog, adds further evidence to the Mr Tang’s claim that he was set up with a cleverly orchestrated plan. If anything, this reinforces the fact that the press has always been a powerful tool not just for critics of the administration but for the administration itself. So it’s not a stretch at all to consider that politicians would want to be able to harness this tool and utilise it for themselves while preventing others from using it. You can see where this is going, I’m sure. The heavily debated Clause 61 in the proposed Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) states: So apart from the sweeping powers that would be granted under the act to any minister to declare falsehoods, ministers are also able to exempt individuals and groups from the act. This is a power that would be easily abused as a means to avoid holding the government accountable for potentially spreading falsehoods. For example, in the case above of the government claimed in Court that the announcement made by Mr Jeyaretnam at the WP rally was the problem when actually it was the administration that released that information to the press in the first place, making way for a libel suit. As it stands, there is a high potential of the law being misused by a minister seeking to advance an agenda. As Associate Professor of Law at Singapore Management University and former NMP, Eugene Tan said in an article by the South China Morning Press, “Any law can be misused for rogue purposes. Ultimately, a price will be paid by the government of the day if the law is misused to clamp down on dissent. How it is applied will also be subjected to the court of public opinion. Hence, governmental action must not only be in conformity with the law, but also endowed with legitimacy. ×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××× When fake news and doxxing law is the talk of the town.. It's worth remembering that things Are complicated. 1997 seems to be year that never stops giving.

Hi all, as above, where to download

If you're a fan of cars and races, I bet you would love to play GRID 2, a racing game developed by Codemaster. The game is set to hit the shelves in over a month's time now. That said, it isn't hard to see why the developers are keeping their lips sealed tightly. However, it seems like they just can't resist giving us some insights into the multiplayer aspect of the game, which is quite interesting, I would say. The multiplayer mode (shown in the accompanying video) in the game is a good way of showing off your racing skills to 11 other competitiors on the same track as you. Imagine the feeling of being able to defeat all 11 other racers on the track, it's just a feeling nothing can replace, ah, how nice

Stomp has made many singaporeans mousy, escalating small disputes with phototaking, giving one sided stories, publicly humiliating people, causing people to judge one another too readily. Even ST editor is hanging up the Stomp editor, making him apologise himself after apology last week. Too bad no picture of him. This is karma. Hope he learns to edit Stomp better. If he gets to keep his job Stomp editor apologises for false picture on website Stomp editor Azhar Kasman apologised to train operator SMRT on Friday for a false picture posted on the citizen journalism website by one of its employees. He also expressed regret that he did not cooperate promptly with SMRT staff during its investigation into the picture that purported to show a train moving with a set of its doors open. It was posted last week by Ms Samantha Francis, 23, a Stomp content producer. She has since been sacked. Mr Azhar was writing in response to a letter from SMRT's interim chief executive Tan Ek Kia, which said that he had withheld material information from SMRT staff after the picture was first posted. 'This was a serious error of judgment on my part,' Mr Azhar, 32, wrote. 'I can only say in mitigation that as a relatively new editor, this was the first time I was dealing with a situation like this.' He said he hoped to learn from this mistake, and that Stomp's operations would be tightened to prevent a repeat of such an incident. On Friday, Stomp addressed on its website some of the questions that have swirled since the incident. It said that posts from its staff would no longer be put up under nicknames but instead be clearly attributed to 'The Stomp team'. It also made clear that Stomp - which has one editor and six content-producers - does not pay for content contributed by members of the public

Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh Many of us will experience the joy of voting this year. More thrilling, perhaps, is that we will actually have tough choices to make

SAN FRANCISCO - Gizmodo said Monday that California police raided the home of an editor for the gadget blog who revealed details last week of a secret next-generation iPhone prototype. Gizmodo published excerpts from a search warrant that gave police permission to seize property from editor Jason Chen's home that was "used as the means of committing a felony" or "tends to show that a felony has been committed." The search warrant signed by a local judge specifically authorized the seizure of "printed documents, images and/or notations pertaining to the sale and/or purchase of the stolen iPhone prototype." Gizmodo last week said it purchased the iPhone prototype for US$5,000 from an unidentified person who found it in a California bar, where it had been lost by a 27-year-old Apple software engineer named Gray Powell. Chen said in a post on the Gizmodo website on Monday that he and his wife returned from having dinner out on Friday to find police searching their home in the northern California county of San Mateo. "The officers had a computer and were cataloging all the items they took from my home," Chen said. "They told me they were here for a few hours already and had to break the front door open because I wasn't home to open the door." The officers, members of the California Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team, took four computers and two computer servers from the couple's house, according to the posting. Gizmodo has said it returned the iPhone prototype to Apple after the notoriously secretive company asked for it back. Gizmodo also published a letter from a lawyer for its owner, Gawker Media, objecting to the raid on Chen's home and arguing that a "search warrant may not be validly issued to confiscate the property of a journalist." "We expect the immediate return of the materials that you confiscated from Mr. Chen," said the letter from Gaby Darbyshire, who is also Gawker's chief operating officer. Stephen Wagstaffe, spokesman for the San Mateo County District Attorney's office, confirmed Friday's raid and said Apple had contacted his office to report the crime. But he did not elaborate on investigation details. "The allegation was that there was a reasonable cause that a felony theft had occurred," he said. "This is the beginning of the investigation." Apple, which was not available for comment, is expected to unveil the next-generation iPhone this summer. Trumpeted as a major scoop, Gizmodo's bloggers said they returned the device to Apple after an official request came from Cupertino, but not before taking it apart and reporting on the device's details. According to a search warrant posted on gizmodo.com, the computers may contain photographs of Apple's "prototype 4G iPhone," as well as email pertaining to its purchase, call records, and research on Gray Powell, the Apple engineer who purportedly misplaced the device. In a letter to the police also published on gizmodo.com, Gawker's Chief Operating Officer and legal counsel Gaby Darbyshire asserted the search and seizure was illegal under California law, because Chen works as a journalist for the publication, protecting him from such action. According to Gizmodo, Powell, the Apple engineer, was celebrating his 27th birthday at a beer garden in Redwood City, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, on the night of March 18. Gizmodo said Powell forgot the prototype phone, which had been disguised to resemble the previous model iPhone, the iPhone 3GS, on a bar stool when he left the establishment. Gizmodo said the phone ended up with a person who had been sitting next to Powell at the bar after no one else claimed it. "Weeks later, Gizmodo got it," the technology blog said. Nick Denton, founder of the Gawker blog network, said on his Twitter feed that US$5,000 (S$6,881.50) was paid for the phone. "Yes, we'll do anything for a story," Denton said. "We're proud practitioners of checkbook journalism." According to Gizmodo, features of the new phone, expected to be unveiled later this year, include a front-facing video camera for video chat, a flash and an improved regular cameraa with a larger lens. It also has a flat back instead of curved back, is thinner than the 3GS, is three grams heavier and has a battery that is 16 percent larger.

Came across this clip at stomp: http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/singapor...nt.jsp?id=57136 Seems like the one posting is a great editor, make it seems like it's the SUV's fault. From the look of it, seems like the author did something which pissed the SUV big time and was edited in the clip. Do take a look. Think it's quite funny.

can this be used as a precedent for those 'ricers' who caused death of innocents? which is worse? use handphone and beat red light, then killed someone or some arses ricers thinking they are the kings of the road, speed and then killed someone or 2? in any case, jail term and fine cannot bring back a life. -------- Editor jailed 18 months for fatal crash By Khushwant Singh A NEWSPAPER editor was sentenced to 18 months jail on Thursday for maiming a motorcyclist and causing the death of his pillion rider on Christmas Eve two years ago. Lim Hong Eng, 56, of Shin Min Daily News, was jailed 18 months for causing the death of pillion rider Melania Melaniawati, 24, and six months for grievously hurting the Indonesian maid's employer David Jermais Pattiselanno. The sentences will run concurrently. She could have been jailed up to five years and fined. Her lawyer Subhas Anandan said the sentences were 'manifestly excessive' and served notice to appeal. (is SUBHAS aware that her client killed someone becuase of her action!?? ) Lim was granted $20,000 bail on the two charges. She also faces another charge of driving while using a cellphone, for which a pre-trial conference will be held on Sept 11. Bail of $3,000 was given for this count. On that rainy Christmas Eve in 2006, Lim's car hit Mr Pattiselanno's motorcycle at the junction of Whitley and Dunearn roads. Mr Pattiselanno, 70, had stopped along Dunearn Road to wait for the lights to change before proceeding to buy festive goodies. When he tried to move forward, his motorbike was hit by Lim's Toyota Wish multi-purpose vehicle. The impact flung him off his machine and he broke his leg. The retiree still needs crutches today to move about. DPP Ng had, during the trial, told the court that Lim ran a red light and hit the motorcycle. She also failed to keep a proper lookout. He added that Lim was also on her cellphone while driving. A witness had testified that she saw Lim with her left hand to the side of her face, and that Lim was holding her cellphone when she emerged from her car after the crash and made a call. The witness called the police at 3.48pm. Telephone records show that Lim called her son at home at around that time. Lim denied beating the lights and using a phone. She claimed she had raised her hand to her cheek as she was in a state of shock. She also denied being in a hurry, but DPP Ng said Lim had told the court she had a spa appointment at Raffles Town Club at 3.45pm. She was, therefore, probably concerned about being late.

The chinese paper editor who was found guilty of causing the death of a Filipino maid after running through the redlight is due for sentence today. Stay tune.

(The Straits Times) - SINGAPORE newspapers should be more circumspect in treating 'allegations or innuendoes that clearly sought to damage the character and reputation' of important Malaysian personalities, said the Malaysian High Commissioner to Singapore, Datuk N. Parameswaran. 'I say this because I believe that it is personalities who determine the state of relations between two countries,' wrote Mr Parameswaran in a letter addressed to the Editorial Director of MediaCorp Press, which publishes the free tabloid Today. Taking issue with an article in Today headlined Under Fire - the First Lady-in-waiting, Mr Parameswaran wrote: 'When I arrived in Singapore, Malaysia-Singapore relations were really at a low. But it was the personalities of Prime Minister Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong which made possible the positive changes that had taken place in the bilateral relations between Malaysia-Singapore.' He added that since then, other personalities both in Singapore and Malaysia had 'contributed much to bringing the bilateral relations to the very warm level that we find ourselves in today'. He wrote that he 'was rather perturbed' by the Today article as it carried quotes which he said 'vilified the character' of Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, the wife of Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak. Madam Rosmah and her husband's names were mired in controversy when a popular blogger last month claimed that Madam Rosmah was connected to the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu. Mr Parameswaran said that he had never found Madam Rosmah to be 'arrogant' or 'not as humble' as suggested by the article. 'In fact, Datin Seri Rosmah was always warm towards my officers and me and was always caring about our welfare,' he wrote. 'I would be sad if I learn next year that Dato' Seri Najib finds himself not in a position to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue which he has attended five times since its inception, or if I learn that the Najib family has decided to spend their holidays elsewhere.' http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/9452/84/ the article http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/index2....o_pdf=1&id=9288