Observer Observations

The Observer was featured on the front page of today’s Zaobao Fukan.

We’re given the biggest coverage among all the campus publications, and it appears to be due to the fact that the Observer is completely self-funded and self-sustaining.

I think this would probably be a surprise to some people that we run the entire ship on our own. It should not be that much of a surprise if one thinks a little harder. If the Observer wants to be completely objective, the only way is to try and stay independent of possible influences from other organisations as much as possible, and that includes the NUS administration. We do not want to take a cent from NUS because doing so will give NUS a hold over our reporting.

Of course, that those from the Observer are willing to pay and stay despite no benefits of CCA records, points, or whatever other perks you can think of says alot about the people we have. I don’t mean diss the other publications but I’m proud that those from the Observer are willing to give all that it takes to create a new path, even if it means having to take their time, effort, energy and money. At least there’s some real passion burning here.

After reading the article, from a journalistic perspective, it was well written, and reflected the varying perspectives. There was one thing though. I wanted to laugh out real loud reading the comments of Nurhdyati (I’m not sure if I spelt the name right) of Hooked, a NUSSU spawned lifestyle publication. She called the Observer a mere blog because we are not official media of NUS.

Well, at least most of what is written in blogsphere are alot more honest and intelligent than “official” MSM in Singapore. And, I think some blogs are more popular than MSM even. Of course, if I had to compare Observer with Hooked, I would say that it’s probably comparing something like Kway Teow Man or Yawning Bread to Xiaxue. It’s obvious what you would turn to for intelligent pieces or tabloids.

The Observer has been in business for 5 weeks now, and it’s 5 weeks of hell.

Initally, it was operational issues. That’s to be expected, since it’s a totally new venture. Took a few weeks to fine tune until the state it is today. We’re still tuning it, but it’s more or less stabilised now.

What was unexpected was the huge reactions we got from some student organisations when we went out to cover their elections. Some clubs were very nice and co-operative, such as Engineering, Business and Arts. Other clubs were a total nightmare. Sports and Science were so damn secretive, putting up walls after walls of obstacles in a bid to prevent us from gaining entry.

Science wasn’t so bad in the sense that they played delay tactics. They stonewalled us by taking their own time to reply. Well, that’s still tolerable in my opinion. Sports was completely TERRIBLE.

First, a reporter went to interview the President about their external elections fiasco. The story was written and went to print. That president, after reading the story called up my reporter and demanded a retraction, citing that he spoke in confidence and the contents of the interview was confidential. The reporter called me, and I told her to put that guy through to me.

The president claimed he agreed to the interview only on the condition that he could vet the article before publishing. I told him in the face that it is against our journalistic code of ethics. He had the cheek to tell me that he managed to get a Straits Times reporter to do just that, and why can’t our paper do the same. Honestly, I don’t care what the ST does (and for that matter, I think ST is not a newspaper worth shouting about) but we do not stoop to that kind of level and sacrifice our journalistic ethics and integrity just to get one story.

I told him point blank that if there are factual inaccuracies, we will allow that to be clarified. So he went on about some small minor things, which I said fine, that can be changed. He couldn’t find fault with other things, so he decided to claim that confidentiality was breached. I talked to my reporter and decided to retract the article because my reporter made an ambigious statement with the word confidentiality, thus implying some form of confidentiality. It is only fair to do that unless we are absolutely sure that confidentiality was absolutely a non-issue.

Well, that’s not the end. He went to harangue my reporter and got other people to join in. Honestly, under Singapore law, he could be thrown in jail for that. His actions was completely unbecoming of a club president, and he was a 2 time club president. Totally unbelievable. He caused quite a fair bit of mental anguish to my reporter and what gives him the bloody right to do that? We did not report untruths. We wrote what was observed and heard. If the truth embarasses you, in the first place, it is your own fault for not getting your own house in order. There’s no need to point fingers at everyone else. The one that the finger really needs to point at is himself.

So, the next saga is trying to cover the internal elections. He called up my reporter claiming that we cannot enter because it’s private. I took over the conversation and?told him that he has no right to bar us from entry because under his constitution, we are members of his club and we have every right to attend meetings and activities of the club. He tried to argue, but I know full well what I am talking about, and so he gave up. I must note that in the phone conversation that there was an extremely agitated woman shrieking in the background “What right does the Campus Observer has to come?”

I was told that woman is a part of sports club, and that woman had previously screamed at my reporter too. Honestly, I don’t understand the issue. Why are all the leaders of sports club so worked up over people observing a meeting and writing about it? Other clubs didn’t give us any problem. Is there something that sports desperately does not want the students to know?

In order to thwart us, the internal elections was cancelled and changed into a meeting. I called up the sports club president, and he said he’s barring the Observer. I told him by his constitution he has no right to, and he said he will bar us anyway. Clearly, something is not right. I don’t know if we can probe any further, but the entire episode just showed how rotten some of the student organisations have gotten in NUS.

As a journalist, I will say that the press is never out to get anyone. We act in the interest of the public that the newspaper serves. As members, students have the right to know what goes on in campus. We do not bother with whether the report looks good or bad on you. What is of concern to us is that we got the facts right, and we did not misrepresent anyone. If the story ends up looking bad on you, don’t fucking blame us for reporting it. Blame yourself for allowing things to happen in the first place. If you did things by the book and your conscience is clear, there is no way we can make you look bad.

And, do not think you can get off the hook by declining to comment. If you decline to comment, we will publish that comment was declined, and if the story is about an serious allegation or breach, you will look like you are trying to hide things. It is a better option to say your side of the story because that gives you a chance to explain things. Once again, don’t blame the press for making you look bad. If you commented and explained why certain things had to happen, it will gain more understand rather than just clamming up.

The press can be fearsome, but only if you have something to hide. If you have nothing to hide, the press is not just something not to be feared, but something that is to your advantage as well. A bad workman will always blame his tools.