Clarification on the leak of Dr Allan Ooi’s letter and another exposure of Shin Min’s journalistic dishonesty
On 12 March 2009, we published an extract of Dr Allan Ooi’s farewell email to his family and friends followed by the full version a day later. We have initially indicated that we will remove the letter after 48 hours of publication.
We received a lot of flak from netizens lampooning us for infringing on the privacy of Allan’s family by publishing a personal email without seeking their permission first.
The truth is: after we published the letter, we received an email from Allan’s sister Lynette giving us permission to continue putting up the letter to debunk the lies, half-truths and myths which were being circulated and perpetuated by the mainstream media.
We did not reveal this fact because we do not wish to complicate the Ooi family’s meeting with MINDEF.
Our first altercation with Shin Min Daily happened in this instance when we exposed their journalistic dishonesty by deliberately leaving out crucial segments of Allan’s letter expressing unhappiness about his work.
Shin Min Daily retaliated a day later claiming that the Ooi family was unhappy with us for leaking the email which is nothing further from the truth. We have been corresponding with Lynette over email all along.
[To Shin Min journalists who are reading this, sorry to make you look like fools because you are really a bunch of idiots who think nobody will ever know and expose your dirty underhanded tactics!]
Below is a documentation of the chain of events which transpired between 11 March and 14 March 2009.
We leave you to judge for yourselves the professionalism and integrity of Shin Min journalists.
11 March 2009, 2pm
We receive an email from an anonymous individual attached with Dr Allan Ooi’s farewell letter together with a message imploring us to publish the letter in full to dispel the ongoing rumors and speculations about the cause of his suicide.
12 March 2009, 9am
We published only the first 3 paragraphs of Dr Allan’s letter which talked about his unhappiness with SAF while deliberating omitting the personal issues brought up by him. We had also stated explicitly we will take down the letter the next day.
(read article here)
12 March 2009, 4pm
Sin Ming Daily published the entire letter leaving out the part which we had published earlier to create the false impression that Dr Allan killed himself over a failed relationship:
Sin Ming had a copy of the letter all along. Why didn’t they publish it earlier and only after we had released selected portions of it?
We published an immediate rebuttal to expose Sin Ming’s omission and demolish their hogwash on the spot.
(read article here)
12 March 2009, 8pm
We receive an email from Dr Allan’s sister, Lynette Ooi who thanked us for “being sensitive and objective in our reporting.” She wrote that “her family would not mind if we did not take down the letter.” They were hurt by the fallacious news reports and want the truth of the matter to be made known to the public.
If not for Lynette’s email, we would have removed the letter as promised.
She also beseeched us not to reveal that she had been in contact with us in order not to prejudice her family’s meeting with MINDEF the following week.
12 March 2009, 9pm
We published the full length of Dr Allan’s article for readers to distinguish for themselves the facts from the lies. Asiaone, Channel News Asia and Straits Times followed suit a few days later.
(read article here)
The decision to do so is a controversial one. While over 50% of netizens are supportive of us in revealing the truth, we were lambasted by some quarters for milking the tragedy at the expense of the family’s privacy to gain cheap political mileage.
As we had promised Lynette to keep her liaison with us a secret, we have to bite the bullet and accept the brickbats thrown at us while giving up the right to defend ourselves.
13 March 2009, 12pm
Rumors surfaced in a few internet forums that the Ooi family had sent Allan’s farewell letter to us for publication in order to exert public pressure on MINDEF.
13 March 2009, 4pm
Sin Ming Daily published an interview with Dr Allan’s brother, Adrian who reportedly said that he was disappointed that the letter was leaked and the family is currently investigating the matter to find out who the culprit is:
The article failed to mention two cruical facts:
1 - We published only a small segment of the letter and
2 - It was Sin Ming which published the entire letter with emphasis on Allan’s personal issues in order to shift the blame of the invasion of the family’s privacy to us.
13 March 2009, 11pm
We wrote to Lynette for clarifications on her brother’s interview with Sin Ming. Adrian replied that he simply expressed disappointment at the baseless speculations being propagated by the mainstream media.
Was Adrian misquoted or did the Sin Ming journalist include some of her views to mislead readers in order to discredit us? Again, we cannot reveal the truth to rebut Sin Ming’s report immediately and have to put up with the barrage of criticism directed at us by netizens.
14 March 2009, 12.10am
We published a full clarification absolving the Ooi family’s involvement in our decision to publish Allan’s letter. (read article here)
We were afraid the press may write more rubbish to complicate matters which will have a detrimental impact on the family’s meeting with MINDEF next week.
Even some regular readers were disappointed with us and had vowed never to return to this site again. Throughout the entire week, we were bombarded with complaints, protests and hate mails from Allan’s friends, fellow bloggers and netizens accusing us of being unethical, unscrupulous, unprofessional and so on.
Now that the storm is finally over, we are finally able to let off this heavy load from our chests completely! It is a real torture to suffer in silence not being able to defend ourselves against all sorts of wild, baseless and vile accusations being hurled at us.
This experience has only strengthened our resolve to act as a bulwark against the mainstream media and to expose their spins, myths and lies at all cost no matter what it takes. As long we are around, we will not allow another innocent person to be hurt, maligned and defamed again.
We would like to express our heartfelt gratitude and appreciation to the few who had stayed largely on our side during this difficult period. of time. Thank you for your trust, support and encouragement.
To SPH journalists who are still trying ways and means to discredit us, remember this: we will never publish anything here without evidence. The only reason why we do not so is out of the need to protect the identities of our informers and whistle-blowers.
We can be friends instead of adversaries. Think about it and let us explore how we can take our relationship forward to the benefit of each other.
http://forums.delphiforums.com/sunkopitiam/messages?msg=29826.1
No comments:
Post a Comment