TNP responds to baseless, malicious attacks
June 20, 2011 - 10:58pm
By: The New Paper
THE New Paper has become the target of malicious online attacks after the paper exposed Dr Joseph Ong Chor Teck's links to the anti-establishment site Temasek Review in an Aug 9 report last year.
The people behind the website had remained anonymous until Dr Ong's identity came to light following a smear campaign he launched against a Member of Parliament in May 2009.
After investigating a lead, TNP reported on Aug 9 last year that Dr Ong had admitted to the police that he was behind the posters which showed the MP's photograph on the cover of a toilet bowl and had called for her to step down from a national sports association.
The New Paper reported that Dr Ong had also identified himself to the police as being the founder of Wayang Party and later, Temasek Review.
The police confirmed that a subject was administered a conditional stern warning for the offence of "intentional harassment".
A conditional warning requires, among other things, that the offender maintain a clean record for a specified period, typically about 12 months.
If he commits another offence, he can be charged with the new offence as well as the previous one.
Soon after the police started investigating the matter in 2009, Wayang Party was closed down and Temasek Review was launched.
Dr Ong, a former Raffles Junior College student, graduated from medical school in 2004 and had worked with a government agency before be became a GP in a private clinic.
After TNP's report surfaced, netizens started setting up anti-TR sites and blogs to expose TR and hit back at the site, which they claimed had launched smear campaigns against individuals in the past.
The conflict took a twist with a foreign blogger claiming he had a sex video of someone linked to TR. The 10-minute video, posted last October, purportedly shows the TR man having sex with an unknown woman.
But the man later claimed in an e-mail to the blogger that his face was superimposed in the "doctored" video, although he said he would not be making a police report about it.
He has also asked the blogger to remove the video but the blogger refuses to do so.
Instead, the man's e-mail was posted on the blog, a move not missed by netizens who say that this was TR's own tactic when it received complaints in the past.
The New Paper editor Dominic Nathan addresses online attacks against the paper
Why is TNP the target of online abuse?
It started last year, about the time we exposed Dr Joseph Ong Chor Teck's links to the Temasek Review website.
Since then, the paper and a few of its journalists have been the targets of malicious, unsubstantiated and often personal attacks launched by people hiding behind the anonymity of cyberspace.
The paper is always prepared to defend its stories, and journalists have a pretty thick hide and can roll with the punches when people take on their arguments.
But these attacks have been below the belt and the journalists have been harassed online and over the phone after their personal details were made public.
Why are you responding now?
The latest attack last week was levelled against a long-time tradition of The New Paper to promote education among youth and young working adults.
Every year, TNP works with public and private educational institutions to produce a series of guides for our readers to help them decide on their next course of study.
These guides are distributed together with the day's edition of TNP.
As a value-added service provided by the educational institutions featured in the supplement, a number of complimentary copies are distributed in selected areas to help make more people aware of the educational opportunities available to them.
The latest guide on adult education was distributed last Wednesday and this had nothing to do with online claims that Temasek Review's attacks on TNP have hurt the paper's sales.
June 20, 2011 - 10:58pm
By: The New Paper
THE New Paper has become the target of malicious online attacks after the paper exposed Dr Joseph Ong Chor Teck's links to the anti-establishment site Temasek Review in an Aug 9 report last year.
The people behind the website had remained anonymous until Dr Ong's identity came to light following a smear campaign he launched against a Member of Parliament in May 2009.
After investigating a lead, TNP reported on Aug 9 last year that Dr Ong had admitted to the police that he was behind the posters which showed the MP's photograph on the cover of a toilet bowl and had called for her to step down from a national sports association.
The New Paper reported that Dr Ong had also identified himself to the police as being the founder of Wayang Party and later, Temasek Review.
The police confirmed that a subject was administered a conditional stern warning for the offence of "intentional harassment".
A conditional warning requires, among other things, that the offender maintain a clean record for a specified period, typically about 12 months.
If he commits another offence, he can be charged with the new offence as well as the previous one.
Soon after the police started investigating the matter in 2009, Wayang Party was closed down and Temasek Review was launched.
Dr Ong, a former Raffles Junior College student, graduated from medical school in 2004 and had worked with a government agency before be became a GP in a private clinic.
After TNP's report surfaced, netizens started setting up anti-TR sites and blogs to expose TR and hit back at the site, which they claimed had launched smear campaigns against individuals in the past.
The conflict took a twist with a foreign blogger claiming he had a sex video of someone linked to TR. The 10-minute video, posted last October, purportedly shows the TR man having sex with an unknown woman.
But the man later claimed in an e-mail to the blogger that his face was superimposed in the "doctored" video, although he said he would not be making a police report about it.
He has also asked the blogger to remove the video but the blogger refuses to do so.
Instead, the man's e-mail was posted on the blog, a move not missed by netizens who say that this was TR's own tactic when it received complaints in the past.
The New Paper editor Dominic Nathan addresses online attacks against the paper
Why is TNP the target of online abuse?
It started last year, about the time we exposed Dr Joseph Ong Chor Teck's links to the Temasek Review website.
Since then, the paper and a few of its journalists have been the targets of malicious, unsubstantiated and often personal attacks launched by people hiding behind the anonymity of cyberspace.
The paper is always prepared to defend its stories, and journalists have a pretty thick hide and can roll with the punches when people take on their arguments.
But these attacks have been below the belt and the journalists have been harassed online and over the phone after their personal details were made public.
Why are you responding now?
The latest attack last week was levelled against a long-time tradition of The New Paper to promote education among youth and young working adults.
Every year, TNP works with public and private educational institutions to produce a series of guides for our readers to help them decide on their next course of study.
These guides are distributed together with the day's edition of TNP.
As a value-added service provided by the educational institutions featured in the supplement, a number of complimentary copies are distributed in selected areas to help make more people aware of the educational opportunities available to them.
The latest guide on adult education was distributed last Wednesday and this had nothing to do with online claims that Temasek Review's attacks on TNP have hurt the paper's sales.
