This is not news

iTunes’ party shuffle is playing a copy of: Ay Fond Kiss – Fairground Attraction – The Very Best of Fairground Attraction, of which I have the original CD and therefore didn’t steal music.

I was talking to a friend from who’s back for holidays, and she thanked me for forwarding her the link to Pranay Gupte’s site, saying something to the effect of ‘I toldjers! They bugged my phone, serious! And Channel ‘News’ Asia is exactly like that!’

We went on to discuss whether it was office politics that brought Mr Gupte’s dismissal about, and why someone of his stature would need to stoop so low as to come by our journalistic backwater to write for a paper as ours, even if it were the best designed newspaper in the region. But we agreed that that still wouldn’t strip his allegations of any merit. The editors are former (or still are) spooks who can his stories? How exciting.

But whether or not spooks run a paper and can stories written by award-winning, foreign-talent journalists, there’s never such a thing as an objective piece of news. You’ll never know the truth of any matter unless you wuz there and you saw and heard things as they happened. It happens to the most ‘liberal’ of countries too (including that big one with the red states and blue states), but at least they have a variety of publications to look at and work out the truth somewhere in the middle of the muddle.

As for us, we have to look elsewhere to find out, ferinstance, that there is currently a very serious dengue EPIDEMIC in Singapore. As of 18th September, 5,284 people have been infected, and at least three people have died. Not as serious as SARS meh? How come not on front page news every day?

Even if we’re not interested in politics and stuff, I’d like to know more about the goings on as regards how the folk up at Parliament=Cabinet=Government decide to do what they do. (And then smack them upside the head when they complain of the lack of interest in US-Singapore FTA negotiations. Hallo? We din know there was such a thing until it was almost done. Website forum also dun have! How to be interested?) Then again, BG George Yeo did reveal in an interview some time ago (and which cannot be linked because ST=SPH=Temasek websites don’t archive things for online viewing) how he had sleepless nights and early mornings at the doomed Cancun trade talks.

(But still nobody asked or wrote about why BG Yeo, friendly chap that he is, and the Minister for Trade and Industry as he was then, got sent to Cancun while Prof Tommy Koh, Ambassador at Large, got to do all the exciting FTA work.)

Liang Seah Street
Don’t go out. Got Dengue.

Surf stop: MinJungKim.Com
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18 responses to “This is not news”

  1. FF Avatar

    My colleague’s maid just got dengue. And she never goes out.

    I think it was not highly publicised because it’s not contagious lor.

  2. FF Avatar

    My colleague’s maid just got dengue. And she never goes out.

    I think it was not highly publicised because it’s not contagious lor.

  3. Bubblemunche Avatar

    I totally agree with your observation that there’s never such a thing as an objective piece of news 😉

    Damn, I just murdered a mosquito with with blood in it. I hope I won’t get unlucky.

  4. Bubblemunche Avatar

    I totally agree with your observation that there’s never such a thing as an objective piece of news 😉

    Damn, I just murdered a mosquito with with blood in it. I hope I won’t get unlucky.

  5. Beach-yi Avatar

    Ok, beng on the more anal side, I think it is just a matter of public service to just warn people not to wear dark coloured clothing and maybe slap on some insect repellant due to a rise in Dengue fever case.

    Whether it is catagious or not doesn’t matter because no one can tell which mozzie is a dengue virus carrying one.

    At least in the National Slavery context, the good MOs will issue a health alert or some sort and all the commanders have to make their men roll down their number 4 and keep themselves covered. I think one can be charged if he got dengue and if it is found that he had not followed the standing orders.

  6. Beach-yi Avatar

    Ok, beng on the more anal side, I think it is just a matter of public service to just warn people not to wear dark coloured clothing and maybe slap on some insect repellant due to a rise in Dengue fever case.

    Whether it is catagious or not doesn’t matter because no one can tell which mozzie is a dengue virus carrying one.

    At least in the National Slavery context, the good MOs will issue a health alert or some sort and all the commanders have to make their men roll down their number 4 and keep themselves covered. I think one can be charged if he got dengue and if it is found that he had not followed the standing orders.

  7. Woof! Avatar

    Well, if you go to Colin Goh’s personal website (http://www.colingoh.com/sunday_times.htm) you will see that 4 of his articles have been canned w.r.t. Sunday Times..

  8. Woof! Avatar

    Well, if you go to Colin Goh’s personal website (http://www.colingoh.com/sunday_times.htm) you will see that 4 of his articles have been canned w.r.t. Sunday Times..

  9. David Avatar

    they’ve been trying to ween us off Colin Goh ever since LHL took over… substituting him with that other guy on Sunday, who’s just not as funny.

    And I thought dengue’s a pandemic, not an epidemic? so not as newsworthy

  10. David Avatar

    they’ve been trying to ween us off Colin Goh ever since LHL took over… substituting him with that other guy on Sunday, who’s just not as funny.

    And I thought dengue’s a pandemic, not an epidemic? so not as newsworthy

  11. powerpuff Avatar

    Miyagi!

    Yes, I do agree with this. Media and Newspapers always have some political agenda embedded inside.

    Wow to the dengue. I didnt know the numbers were so high > all i know that it has been a common problem since late last year

  12. powerpuff Avatar

    Miyagi!

    Yes, I do agree with this. Media and Newspapers always have some political agenda embedded inside.

    Wow to the dengue. I didnt know the numbers were so high > all i know that it has been a common problem since late last year

  13. semiophile Avatar

    I would _like_ to say something like ‘thank god for http://www.iht.com or other online newspapers’, but i always still believe that it’s up to local papers to flesh out what’s happening in Singapore’s economy and society… guess the truth is that the straits times doesn’t have a very strong editorial and commentary section…

  14. semiophile Avatar

    I would _like_ to say something like ‘thank god for http://www.iht.com or other online newspapers’, but i always still believe that it’s up to local papers to flesh out what’s happening in Singapore’s economy and society… guess the truth is that the straits times doesn’t have a very strong editorial and commentary section…

  15. Agagooga Avatar

    There’s no such thing as an objective piece of news, but some pieces of news are more objective than others.

    This is just like the case of the divers who went to Indonesia, and their case was only reported a few days later. Ahem.

  16. Agagooga Avatar

    There’s no such thing as an objective piece of news, but some pieces of news are more objective than others.

    This is just like the case of the divers who went to Indonesia, and their case was only reported a few days later. Ahem.

  17. ivan Avatar

    You aren’t local are you.

  18. ivan Avatar

    You aren’t local are you.

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