Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The saga of online firestorm against The New Paper, a PAP gutter press

(source)

Embattled TNP journalist Bryna Sim has lodged a police report against a netizen who posted her handphone number on the TNP Facebook.


The netizen Sharon Yeo claimed that Ms Bryna Sim told her she made a police report because she flamed her and posted her hp number online. Ms Yeo denied ever flaming Ms Sim and she simply re-posted her handphone number which was circulating in the hardwarezone forum. The police has not contacted her yet as of now.

A lawyer we spoke to confirm that there are absolutely no legal grounds for Ms Sim to make the police report as Singapore does not have any privacy laws and it is already available in the public domain.

TNP had ran an article on 1 May by Bryna Sim and Melvin Singh with the misleading headlines: “Is he SDP’s loose cannon“:

“It appeared that he (Dr Chee) was about to lead the group in a march before other party members intervened to stop it.”

It then tried to sow discord within the ranks of SDP by insinuating that some SDP candidates were ‘horrified’ by Dr Chee’s actions and tried to stop him.

It turned out that a supporter had wanted to hang a garland over Dr Chee which he obliged. The crowd was clamoring to shake his hand and ask for his autograph. No ‘protest march’ of any sort ever took place.

Despite being caught in the red, TNP ‘journalists’ continue to ‘stand’ by their fairy tale and refused to apologize. When contacted by the Straits Times, TNP editor Dominic Nathan said they ‘stand by their story’.

In a reply to a netizen’s letter, Melvin Singh claimed that he was ‘alerted’ to the ‘march’ by SDP candidates which had been proven to be patently false again.

Even when her mistake was exposed, Bryna Sim still refuse to apologize.

While Ms Sim has been on the receiving end of brickbats from netizens, her editor Melvin Singh who was the one in charge of the article has gone into hiding. Netizens have been trying to contact his office number to no avail:

Melvinderpal Singh
Deputy Editor
Office: (65) 6319 5567
Email: melvin@sph.com.sg

The fairy tale concocted by TNP to smear SDP is likely to cost it crucial votes in the polls on 7 May. Till now, TNP is still standing by its hogwash and refuse to retract the story, let alone offer a public apology to SDP and Dr Chee.

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