Two days ago, STOMP decided to post a story. It was submitted by one of its members, STOMPer EnG, which somehow made it through its editorial board. The story claimed many things. Of course, to attract as much attention as it possibly can, the story had to carry a scandalous title. And so they went with "TPJC couple petting in bus back seat: 'Girl moaned and screamed at times'", as expected with inverted commas accompanying it (an easy way out).
Oh, and that is not all. Having an interesting title is just not enough, isn't it? We need the oomph! factor. So why not post a photo or video of them in action and then go on to elaborate on the story? It is all right, you do not have to actually take a video or series of photo of them petting in the bus back seat. All you need to do is to take a single photo of them together to prove that they are indeed there, seating in the bus back seat. The rest is up to you and your creativity (which sometimes backfires, terribly). Yeah, it is all right to tell a story solely based on a picture. I mean, we are taught to do it in Primary School.
After all that is done, do remember to check your work for mistakes. (Don't let Ms Tan spot any errors...) Failure to do so may send a torpedo right at all your hard work and possibly a smack right at the centre of your self-esteem (when you receive the paper back with remarks).
We all know a story out of point is just worthy of a F grade. To start with one thing and then end with another is the greatest mistake any author would want to end up with. To say 'I don't know what were they doing...' and then going on to speculate that they were petting is the most outrageous thing to do.
The STOMPer who submitted the photo is trying too hard to make a sensationalized story come to life. Oops, the SHOCKED STOMPer I mean (that bold word is important). There is just no evidence to support the claims as mentioned by the SHOCKED STOMPer.
The article posted in STOMP is just not conclusive enough at all. We are now questioning the reliability of the user-generated news website. There seems to be a huge flaw. It is too easy for anyone to bring down the reputation of a person or institution or company he or she doesn't like. All you need to do is to wait for them to make a 'mistake'.
Two friends sitting in a park. They were sharing their problems with one another. And then, the girl burst into tears. The boy decided to console the girl and whispered to her ears.
BOOM!
Front page photo with a title 'Romeo and Juliet caught kissing in public!'. It is that easy.
TPJC In STOMP: The Review
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with the jae around the corner, it is abt time college students attempt to paint a bad image of their rivals.
sajc DOWN.
ajc DOWN.
tpjc DOWN.
who is next?
This is why citizen journalism doesn't work here. Singapore is full of idiots. The people making the comments just prove my point.
the ppl making the comments? you mean the blogger here or stompers there? who are you referring to? lol.
anyway, i was expecting this to happen. and you know what/// i think we are living in a more tighter space than ever.
damn those stompers!
I was referring to the stompers. These are the kind of people who make me embarrassed to be Singaporean sometimes. It's so sad they make up the majority of our country.
Well,this result was a lot better than what we expected.We thought that you all would react negatively to this matter,that is why we tried isolating it.However,I do have one question.Are you going to support our friends in need,or join the public in discriminating blindly?
Hello people,
The only reason why I am siding the students is because I feel that they have fallen victims to thoughtless, irresponsible and feather-brained stompers.
The way the stomper sensationalized the whole thing and made the whole thing look disgusting is just unacceptable. His post is portraying the victims as shameless and spoilt Singaporeans.
That is very bad.
Nonetheless, I am against public displays of affection and have criticized students who made out publicly. Therefore, if what the stomper described was true, supported by evidence, then of course I am not supporting them.
In a nutshell, in this case, I am helping the students to clear their names. We have to practise some thoughtfulness towards the feelings of other people.
And you have my word on that. =)
Intellectual:
I repeat what I said on the forum for the benefit of those who did not read it.
It is sad that a presumedly intellectual society like ours have people who will jump to conclusions based on a picture and a highly sensationalised story.
It is even sadder that this story has proven that Singapore is not a place where we can practise freedom of speech because our society is not ready for it as our people are not able to exercise responsibility over their own words. Furthermore, going by what is happening to the students, it seems that our society is also not ready because we are all ready to leap when something like that happens.
How then can freedom of speech thrive in such a culture that is both irresponsible and not critical enough to support freedom of speech?
The stomper is really a total bas..honestly, to create news from some unbased accusations on the students is downright despicable. What should he have done better? Video the entire process. Then, I can say, respect.
First of all, STOMP is nothing but a place for rubbish. But the thing now is, even if you wanted to cover up, it wouldn't be that easy because it appeared on the newspaper and especially for those aunties and uncles, it would not be easy for them to be convinced since that's the impression they got of the college. Anyway, this type of rubbish will tone down la... Not to worry for the victim... It's at the peak now but soon it will fall... About what I saw in stomp, it's not right for two students wearing their school uniform and hugging each other. If you ever tell me that's not the true story. Come on, the girl looks so shiok.(look at her expression). & It's already wrong to show public display of affection in school uniform. So, moral of story is, think twice for your action. I think it's easy for netizens to nab the poster who is spreading nonsense...
Let's Boycott STOMP... haha~
To some of the comments: The focus here should on citizen journalism, rather than speculating on whatever conspiracy theory of rival JCs trying to do another JC in.
As mentioned before, I am of the view that citizen journalism has to come with responsibilities and conscientious as well. Unlike a real reporter who may check back with all parties of a matter in order to get a more rounded report, citizen journalism is very much one –sided story. A responsible citizen reporter should do its own judgement on whether the situation is as what it seems instead of reporting for sake of sensationalising the story. One of my brother’s schoolmate also encountered the same situation being “wronged” by a over-righteous STOMPer. Read here if interested.
Actually most readers like many STOMPers are mature enough to know that these kinds of stories have to taken with a pinch of salt. I often read comments from STOMPers telling the person off for surfacing uncertain or petty situations, thus it is rather unfair to overturn the whole lot of STOMPers for this one case.
Having to say that, the clarification - “Two friends sitting in a park. They were sharing their problems with one another. And then, the girl burst into tears. The boy decided to console the girl and whispered to her ears.” is just weak defense and might cast more bad light to the situation. It sounded dubious and a little farfetched itself and may I say it might even add credit to the STOMPer’s account.
Sadly when this kind of irresponsible report surfaced, it also erodes people’s trust in all citizen journalists’ or bloggers’ accounts. This reminded me on one of your earlier post on Singapore’s blogosphere. I had wanted to comment about it, but have been too busy. I have a slightly different view and will probably write about it later.
:) – Nah, I am working adult. Not from any JCs.
This blog post seems hastily done. Chill a bit.
I visited the link and can understand that you are kinda mad at the whole thing. Many of them are calling your friends cheap, tiko etc. I think that is a very bad thing. Shows how much our netizens believe in whatever is shown wholly.
On a lighter note, now you how the people caught by stompers feel huh?
Learn from this mistake and remind your schoolmates to avoid contact when in uniform in the public. There are many stompers out there.
LOl. you're from TPJC, you're siding your own schl. no doubt that the article was one sided too. we dont know who's in the right and who's in the wrong. oh wells. you may just cover up for TPJC. it isnt exactly going to help much either. LOL. people have their own thinking.
this is why we use other identities. the thing is,even if we were not tpjcians,just ordinary members of our public,and we happen to know the people involved,they cannot say that we are biased now,can they?the fact of the matter is,if we know that they are innocent,even if we do not know them,we should help them out.it is just that we cannot see injustice done.we should help everyone to the best of our ability,even if they are of no relation to us.
this is so one-sided.
What happens only the ones who did it knows. If their conscience is clear, why blow the matter up?
If you really wanna prove their innocence, you should gather more witnesses who were on that bus. While for the stomper, at least he provided a pictorial evidence. As the saying goes, 'seeing is BELIEVING'. So besides critising this stomper's attitude or whatsoever, why dont you use the time to look for those other passengers.
or else, just keep this case close cos you guys are just adding MORE problems to their already screwed-up notorious behavior on the bus.
The stomper is just being a lame ass and got nothin better to do... for all u noe the pic could be that he was whisperin to her... and this "creative" story POPs out... =="
blindly supporting your schoolmates isn't always the right thing to do. those of us who know the both of them are not the least surprised, nor are we criticizing the stompers.
they made their bed, now they lie in it.
this atomp article really makes me frustrated. it is a classic example of ignoring one side of the story and just looking at the side with sex and all.
i believe we shld support them, right or wrong, because they are our schoolmates. that's what friends do
aiyoh, tis thing is common lah among young couples in school uniforms.. wats the hoohaa abt. its just tat the couple was unlucky to be caught by a stomper.. tis is not a scandal lah. A TPJC teacher caused a greater furore in 2006 when he was caught red handed flirting online with a JC1 student admiring her sexy legs. whatever happened to that cheehong teacher now ha? is he still teaching there?
the stomp article is a load of bull.. i mean, the headline says tt e girl is moaning and stuff.. but e only evidence i see is e pic of e girl and a boy hugging... no wideo to show e moaning and whatnot... u want to create such stories on stomp then provide sufficient evidence la.. if not then shut the f**k up
The thing is,this case is closed,to prevent further damage.While some of use know both of them,we also know that they will never do such an indecent thing.Anyway,case closed.Further posting will only be contributing to the success of the blogger,the defamatory of our friends.
Let's quiet down for now, Who don't know that STOMP is full of lots of crap, there are to much bo liao post up there that is a big eyesore. Just hope Helen Choo did not decide to jump to judgement hastily. The trust level of the public in regard to STOMP just reflect the intellectual level of the public. They might have high education degree, but lack of the knowledge skill to digest what is right and wrong. Just seeing the quality of the article written by STOMPers, we should already know that STOMP can't be trusted a reliable source.
Pardon me for my high intrusion in STOMP alongside with several friends. I just can't stand it seeing those comments calling my pal degrading names, even worse, the flaming was also directed to other commenters who disagree with EnG.
First and foremost I wish to state that I do not condone any indecent acts in public space especially in school uniforms. But in this case whether their actions, if proven true can be considered as indecent act is indeed subjective. However, after reading the latest news on the matter, I feel that TPJC's management was unduly harsh and draconian even if the students involved were 100% culpable and proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Hey we are not in Communist North Korea or Zimbabwe! Notwithstanding the presence of photo evidence where a picture can tell a thousand words, on the flip side it may not reveal the true picture on what actually transpired.
Was the decision by TPJC management to strip the students of their student councillors appointments based just on the picture and allegations of “STOMPer EnG”? Why did the school management in their bid to perform damage control to restore TPJC's public image resorted to the drastic measure requesting the female student to write a statement to apologise for what she had done on the bus? Doing so is tantamount to mea culpa or the admission of guilt for the female student.
I strongly believe that counselling would have sufficed in this context because the complete picture of the incident is unknown save for the allegation made by the person who posted their picture on Stomp. At most they should just be let off with both a warning and counselling just like the incident that happened in 2006. (Please see article below). The teacher concerned was just given a warning and was counselled. The hard evidence in black and white of the misconduct was privy to the students and staff when it was forwarded to the whole school. As an educator, the teacher was required to be a role model and subscribe to a higher standard of ethos and moral/professional conduct and therefore the gravitas of the teacher's actions is far greater. The consequence of the teacher's conduct would have been far greater if it was not discovered by the school authorities or MOE. Where is the consistency and parity in the punishment of the current two students vis-a-vis the teacher in 2006? The impact of the punishment meted out to the two students would definitely leave a deep psychological scar on them.
I hope TPJC management can reconsider and review their knee jerk decison making to this episode and perhaps set internal guidelines on how to deal with similar incidents in the future in view of the profileration of New Media and Web 2.0 platforms to propagate controversial news. I believe that TPJC management should be more discerning towards articles on TPJC submitted by citizen journalists on platforms such as Stomp or in blogs and online forums. Let me quote Straits Times Political Editor Ms Chua Lee Hoong who articulated her reservations about the credibility of what is published online in her article “Political Challenges in 2009”.“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.” To summarise my opinion on the matter, the benefit of the doubt should be given to the students involved in the alleged “petting” incident and even if they were proven guilty, the punishment should have parity and consistency to the teacher-student incident in 2006.
Teacher warned for having 'sexy legs' banter with JC girl
Nur Dianah Suhaimi
ndianah@sph.com.sg
680 words
4 June 2006
Straits Times
English
(c) 2006 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
He was caught after his messages praising her beauty were forwarded to the whole school
HE SAID she had sexy legs and told her that she was pretty. Then he told her he was attracted to girls from her former school.
Flirty conversation between two adults? No, this exchange was between a 28-year-old male teacher from Tampines Junior College and a 17-year-old student.
He was caught after the messages were forwarded to the whole school. He was hauled up by the college principal, counselled and given a verbal warning.
It all started with a friendly exchange of messages on the JC's intranet messaging system between the teacher and the first-year arts student, formerly from Tanjong Katong Girls' School.
But soon, the messages became more than just friendly chat.
Aside from the 'sexy legs' exchange, he asked her if she had a curfew and if she often went out late at night.
When she told him she was only comfortable with people she knew well, he compared her to a new car which has to be warmed up first before it could function. He also asked her to go with him to buy school supplies.
The student told The Sunday Times that she thought the teacher was just being friendly when he started messaging her. She suspected something was not right only when he started commenting on her legs and her looks. She said she continued messaging him because she did not want to offend him.
'But when he asked me out, I stopped messaging him totally,' she said.
It might have ended there but the girl forgot to log off after using a school computer to check her messages on April 13.
Another student using the same computer later chanced upon her messages and read them out of curiosity.
Said the second-year science student: 'I realised that the teacher was doing something very wrong. I thought he should be exposed. That's why I decided to save the messages.'
He also forwarded them to his classmates and the messages, dated from March 31 to April 9, ended up being passed on to almost every student in the school, causing an uproar and a 'student-teacher scandal'.
College principal Goh Hwee Choo told The Sunday Times she has counselled the teacher three times and also gave him a verbal warning. But she added that she wanted to give the teacher, who has been with the school for a year, a second chance.
She said: 'As a new teacher, he might be a little naive about how to conduct himself professionally. His comments were not right but there was no physical relationship between him and the student.'
The Ministry of Education (MOE) said it was leaving it to the school to handle the matter but added that had there been any physical relationship between the two, it would have investigated and taken disciplinary action against the teacher.
The teacher told The Sunday Times that he regretted being too friendly towards the student.
'There was no ill intention on my part but I should not have been over-friendly towards any student,' he said. 'From now on, such over-friendliness will stop.'
The JC girl said the issue had not only affected her studies, it had also affected her social life. She described how schoolmates talked behind her back and some had even approached her friends to ask for details.
She told her parents when rumours about her began circulating throughout the school. Said her mother: 'I was shocked when I heard about it. As a teacher, he should be protecting the students.'
The student said she planned to avoid the teacher in future and regretted not reporting him to the school.
She said: 'I didn't want to blow up the matter and attract unnecessary attention. But now I know that if a teacher crosses the social boundaries, we should report it to the principal immediately.'
I am quite sure we are not blindly supporting them. After all, we are the ones that studied with them for at least a year. And yes, while I am against public display of affection, the parties involved did nothing more than hug. The picture showed that. Do they look like they are in the throes of passion? Please, open your eyes and see for yourself. Question the source before believing it. The person who posted it must be feeling ridiculously happy of him/herself now. Considering the amount of people bought by this stupid lie.