Writers Needed

[Internet Brigade]

TOC: Our values and direction
Sunday, 5 April 2009, 8:56 pm | 136 views
Choo Zheng Xi / Editor-in-Chief

If you have been following TOC regularly, you would have noticed some changes and improvements to our coverage.

As a form of participatory media, we think it’s important for us to share with you, our readers and stakeholders, how we will continue to evolve and improve in the years to come. We’d also like to share with you our core set of values and ideals, as well as our organizational direction, so you have a sense of what keeps our website going and so that you can be a part of that process.

Our website is premised on a core set of foundational objectives. They are:

1) To be a platform for civic participation

2) To make our government accountable, transparent and representative

3) To create a culture of media freedom in Singapore


Civic participation

TOC believes that a functioning democracy requires contributions from all members of society. We believe that it is in the country’s best interest to involve each and every Singaporean, especially vocal critics of this Party centric narrative, a chance to shape the future of our country.

For too long, the national dialogue has been stunted by its over-reliance on a unitary national narrative: that Singapore is synonymous with the PAP government.

This has not been helped by a timid media, which has branded itself a “nation building press”. In reality, the “nation building press” has failed to provide Singaporeans with alternative perspectives, which genuine nation building requires.

By thinking of, and writing about issues of national importance, Singaporeans can begin to take ownership of issues which will affect all of our lives. Participation is the true key to a sense of belonging, not a conditioned monolithic national education.

Hence, it is our policy to provide strong coverage to activist events and initiatives which might not otherwise get a national airing. Activism needs to stop being a dirty word in our country, it needs to be encouraged. This activist spirit of courage in the face of opposition and creativity in execution is what our country needs to move ahead.

This principle of civic participation also underlines the creation of our newest feature, TOC International, which reaches out to overseas Singaporeans and keeps them involved in discussing national politics.

We also believe that the much touted “youth apathy” is a self-fulfilling myth: young people need to be involved as they are the policymakers of tomorrow. Hence TOC’s focus on recruiting youth writers and reporters.

The second characterization of our national narrative that TOC rejects is the notion that our country is a company: Singapore Inc. This mercenary culture is bad for nation building. In the late David Marshall’s words, we have become “worshippers of the Golden Calf”.

If Singaporeans share no idealism except the logic of the free market, we will sell our citizenships to the highest bidder, the country that can accord us the better standard of life. We believe that Singapore’s success should be judged on how well we take care of our poorest and most vulnerable, and not how well we remunerate our elites.

This consideration informs our commitment to cover cost of living issues, the growing income gap, the lack of empathy of highly paid civil servants, as well as coverage of the stories of the poor and underprivileged in society.

Open, accountable and representative government

Civic participation will lead to frustration if our enquiries are met with bureaucratic stonewalling, and our feedback goes down administrative black holes. The efforts of citizens to participate in the national discourse need to bear fruit.

TOC believes in the dictum that a government should fear its people and not the other way round. Members of Parliament (MPs) that are voted for in batches of six are not individually accountable to their constituents, and the deterrent effect it has on opposition challenges leaves government MPs untested on the electoral field of battle.

In between elections, citizens need to have the right to hold their MPs to account. This is where civil liberties such as the right to free speech and assembly are critical to public expressions of dissatisfaction.

This informs our consistent advocacy for a fairer electoral playing field and stronger protections for civil liberties.

Also in line with this objective, TOC will continue to focus on articles asking probing questions of our elected leaders and municipal functionaries.

We are also working to develop a team of specialist commentators to write on questions of accountability relating to public finances and government policies.

Media freedom

A free media culture is crucial for the development of critical thought. The mainstream media has shortchanged Singaporeans by choosing to tell only One Singapore story, but the dominant and domineering political culture is largely to blame for the timidity of our press.

This desire to see more balance informs our coverage criticizing the mainstream press.

TOC understands that we have a positive role to play in creating this culture of media freedom. We will not be blindly critical of the established press, if the real reason for their timidity is political interference. Instead, we will support and encourage all individuals who believe that the purpose of journalism is to speak truth to power, regardless of their institutional affiliations.

TOC recognizes that in playing the media critic, we need to impart all our writers with an awareness of the ethical standards and tools of journalism. We too will be held to account if we fall short, and rightly so.

We believe that credibility and quality are key to TOC’s future. In light of this, we are embarking on a process of honing our writers’ skills through intra-institutional experience sharing and regular meet-ups.

At the same time, we maintain an open-door policy for articles and contributions, and our team will work with you to see that your thoughts are shared with our readers.

 

[captainxerox]

toc got pay money or not for ppl to write? they anyhow take people in, their quality sure suffer. losers like leong sze hian can't write. only remy choo and farquhar are solid.

 

[Internet Brigade]

toc got pay money or not for ppl to write? they anyhow take people in, their quality sure suffer. losers like leong sze hian can't write. only remy choo and farquhar are solid.

The roots of their quality runs deep, if you know what i mean.

 

[captainxerox]

The roots of their quality runs deep, if you know what i mean.

eh? what you mean? monday morning lah, subtle meter not on yet.

 

[Serpico]

toc got pay money or not for ppl to write? they anyhow take people in, their quality sure suffer. losers like leong sze hian can't write. only remy choo and farquhar are solid.

How can you not mention KJ?

 

[Internet Brigade]

eh? what you mean? monday morning lah, subtle meter not on yet.

Lets just say that Remy and Farquar share similar roots and these roots run deep.

 

[captainxerox]

Lets just say that Remy and Farquar share similar roots and these roots run deep.

eh? pap conspiracy theory?

 

[captainxerox]

How can you not mention KJ?

eh? this one i don't remember in toc. what his full name?

 

[Serpico]

eh? this one i don't remember in toc. what his full name?

Just KJ, got sort of a keyboard standing ovation for an article of his a few months back. And I was one off the readers on my feet. Will try to find the article in their archives to pass the link.

 

[Serpico]

Got it! Here's for your reading pleasure.....

http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/01/disgrace-the-life-and-times-of-chua-lee-hoong/

 

[Serpico]

Come to think of it, what the hell............


Disgrace - The life and times of Chua Lee Hoong*
Monday, 5 January 2009, 2:43 pm | 5,876 views
KJ

To pose Chua Lee Hoong’s question back to herself: The problem with the Straits Times is reliability: To what extent can you trust what you read in print?


One of the characteristics of the esteemed novelist J.M. Coetzee’s prose style is his use of the rhetorical question. Rather, questions – in the plural – posed where he wishes to provoke thought, to cast doubt, to suspend his reader’s initial prejudice, and to hint, only just, at what his own predilections might be. Questions leading questions, leading the reader, and no answer in sight, until the reader realises that an answer is neither the point nor destination – the question is.

Questions, when posed skillfully, artfully, are like a chessmaster’s move of pieces across the checkered maze, each move a question, each question an answer, though the question is the answer. And before your eyes, Coetzee’s last question in his novel would have manoeuvred you into his delicate checkmate, leading you no other way but to his final sentence – an exquisite master’s piece – a laurel written just for you.

While Chua Lee Hoong of the Straits Times is nowhere near being a prose stylist, nor is she a seasoned chess player, she does harbour pretensions to be court advisor to the ruling regime. But subtlety is not her forte; subterfuge is. Thus when she pours scorn on the Internet only yet again, it reminds one that journalism is merely a gambit for her more duplicitous ambitions. Chua Lee Hoong is not a journalist; certainly not of a class of the more respectable newspapers, but rather like a pawn columnist of a party newsletter. Pity her subordinates.

But when Chua Lee Hoong releases a frenetic spray of questions about the Internet – and nine at one go, no least, it looks as if she is sweeping her hand across the chess board and sending those pieces – Kings, Queens, Bishops and Knights – scattering onto the ground before her opponent can move into awaiting victory. It is as if a caught and cornered spy had desperately held onto her pistol for that one last rackling into the indifferent sky, before being engulfed by the advancing night. And you begin to suspect that she is more worried about what is left of her ignominious career as the Straits Times’ doyenne of propaganda and regime apologia than the yearly maturity and vindication of the Singaporean blogosphere:

What proportion of Singaporeans turn to it for news and views? How much of an influence does the Internet have on their lives? How much does it affect their thinking? How is the local blogosphere evolving? What impact does it have on national discourse? Five to 10 years from now, what will it be like? Will the Internet’s reach attain some kind of equilibrium and stabilise? Under what circumstances or in what kind of societies will the Internet be at its most influential, and what least?

There are no answers to all of Chua Lee Hoong’s questions above. The answers will only bear out on hindsight with the passing of time, chance, and technology, and with empirical research. But they do appear to portend the imminent demise, if not an attenuated influence, of the printed newspaper. So, more importantly, there are no answers to her questions because hers are not questions. They are flares of SOS to her masters, and entreaties for the containment of online socio-political commentary.

Subtlety is not her forte; subterfuge is. Especially when night is settling in fast.

* * *

Chua Lee Hoong had one more question, however. It was actually her first:

The problem with the Internet is reliability: To what extent can you trust what you read online? Whether due to ignorance, mischief or sheer absence of quality control, much of what is written online has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

This is a genuine question, and well worth thinking about. And the answers are multiple. The Internet is reliable, and it is not. It can be reliable, and it can not. Rather, its reliability is not that important. Writings on the Internet require the discerning eye as much as the Straits Times needs similar scrutiny – the latter all the more so. Discerning eyes are just what this country needs. What are indispensable are the Internet and the Singaporean bloggers’ ability to break the monopoly of information control, debate-framing, and the manufacturing of consent, and to expose the spin, hype, and chicanery of venal scribes and fawners from the mainstream media.

The Internet is not the perfect mass medium, and it need not be. Being an excellent one is enough for its purpose. Its inconsistency, unpredictability, and dilettantism are precisely its strengths. Its excellence and political potency cease only when individuals no longer blog, participate in forum discussions, forward that incriminating email, access a plethora of info-news websites – professional and amateur, local and foreign – and continually comment, debate, and quarrel, post pictures and put up videos and form communities. Its potential for political change is anywhere and everywhere.

But political activism is neutered at its heart when individuals forget that change comes not just from the arena of parliament and street protests, but also from the sitting and thinking individual. The personal is the political, and the political is in the quotidian and in the everyday. Action originates from one’s thought, conscience, and consciousness. An impassioned thought is in itself activism.

Taken together, they constitute the truer citizen, one that perpetually questions received wisdom, rips up underlying assumptions, and resists and unmasks the artifice, injustice, and sophistry emanating from those enthroned in the white chambers of power.

Taken together, you rebuff the vacuous regurgitation of propaganda by those indoctrinated ones, and you expose their shallow, hollow, and spurious patriotism.

But politics, conscience, and activism are numbed when one receives news and information solely from the mainstream media. The Ugly Singaporean has come to be one of the enduring appellations of the country’s citizenry, and one suspects that the numerous unbecoming, even mortifying traits, of the average Singaporean are precisely cultivated by a daily imbibing of those craven, mediocre, and less than hounourable newspapers. It breeds an infantile Singaporean society that constantly needs a PAP government to, in Chua Lee Hoong’s ominously revealing words, educate a new generation of Singaporeans on what governing Singapore entails. Do we need any more propaganda? And from which other national paper can one find a journalist of Chua Lee Hoong’s ilk that holds such a condescending view of her compatriots?

While the Straits Times need not strive to be the perfect national daily, a stratospheric aspiration, given its current pedestrian standards and dictated modus operandi, it need not be pathetic either. At least it should not be a national disgrace.

Since the Straits Times has abdicated its role as the paramount purveyor and conduit of critical, independent thought, then the Internet should attempt that role. As long as you have something original to say, the keyboard is yours.

The alternative is the perpetuation of the illusion that the Straits Times is the model example of an objective newspaper and the epitome of truthful reporting. Illusion, because these are non-existent standards that Singaporeans have been duped into believing.

There is no such thing as an objective viewpoint, a balanced opinion, or a non-partisan position, just as there exists no fiery ice, or for that matter, icy fire. There is only a voice that is yours and yours only – better still an enlightened one – and whether or not it will be quashed.

You, the subject; You, the subjective. And You should never be subjected.

There is no letting of facts to speak for themselves. Facts do not speak for themselves – you do. And truth is what you make of it. This is why there must be a proliferation of objectives, viewpoints, and objecting viewpoints, unbalanced opinions and partisan positions, to demolish the innumerable half-truths in here, and to debate the many-multiple truths out there. This is why freedom of speech is a fundamental birthright and not a conferred reward. And this is how Singaporeans can then begin to grow a mind of their own, abandon their puerile diapers, and finally grow up. This is why the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act has first to go.. This is why our nation-building media has failed.

The alternative is the one-dimensional drivel that you get from the Straits Times every morning.

The alternative is the dumbed-down Singaporean citizen that receives its daily insult without even realising it.

The alternative is the Internet. But you have to make it so, because You are in the Net. This space is yours – from cyberspace, to actual space.

* * *



___

 

[Serpico]

So to pose Chua Lee Hoong’s question back to herself: The problem with the Straits Times is reliability: To what extent can you trust what you read in print?

I believe Reporters sans Frontieres has a few answers dating from 2003, each year a damning echo to the Straits Times, each ranking – take your pick, 144th? 147th? 140th? 146th? 141st? or the latest 154th? – a plangent riposte to Chua Lee Hoong. They make a mockery of every word that she types.

The problem with the Straits Times is precisely one of reliability, in addition to its sub-par journalism, in prose, style, and substance. Prose style is what separates a merely excellent argument from an absolutely brilliant one. Writing is always a tribute to poetry, and an argument for the splendour of literature – but when it comes to the Straits Times, what style, what substance, and what argument? Beyond its incessant self-glorification and vanity revamps of adding more vibrant colours and tweaking trivial typefaces, what quality sentence and thought can be found flowing from the Straits Times? Its newsroom is bereft of courage, critical minds, and an affinity with the English language – a microcosm of the embarrassing Singaporean society that it has been complicit in moulding. A press that is cloying and not free is an unreliable press, a shackled Chua Lee Hoong is an unreliable witness, and dignity slips from the totem poles of both.

To what extent can you trust what the Straits Times prints?

I may be no Coetzee, and this may be no rhetorical question. Following the RSF’s rankings, I’ll hazard an easy answer: To the extent that you trust what Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and China print.

Or if I may take the liberty for a more graceful conclusion: To the extent that Chua Lee Hoong and fellow sycophants at the Straits Times will continue to move their substandard, groveling, and gutless pieces of ‘journalism’ through the square tiles of international opinion and press rankings, blocked by the stubborn Kings on their right, and mocked by the Net Rookies on their left, until they have nowhere and no way but to fall into their deserved, divined, and rightful tomb, that is their laurelled checkmate at the end.