"Could we have phrased our sentences better...." Look, you are not in school, so why didn't you do better? Close reading? You didn't write a text book, why should readers be burdened with close reading? Why so defensive? ST should have apologized for their poor work and strive to do better.
As I have complained on and off in this blog, the standards at ST has fallen but now I think it keeps falling. Where and when will it hit bottom?
The game has changed. If they are not up to the task, as nature abhors a vacuum, it will in time be filled as long as readers are discerning and demanding high standards.
For my reference, TCJ Facebook post which elicited ST response.
Update: 4:30 pm
Sloppy work is now the habit of the Straits Times. It is getting easier and easier all the time to discover people complaining that the facts in the ST is wrong or they have been misrepresented.
My guess for this ongoing rot in the paper is they are struggling to be a financial out performer (I had seen this coming and sold all my SPH shares). Staff salaries is one of their major expense and they could not hire and pay enough people to keep up standards. They are squeezing blood out of stones with journalists and editors taking short cuts. Not long ago after the A levels results came out, I told my daughter her schoolmate made a mistake to accept the SPH journalism scholarship.
The falling standards of the ST has everything to do with the Govt too. After all, the Govt has an iron-fist control over our MSM.
ReplyDeleteSo, the Govt is getting the ST that it wants.
How were the editors chosen? Primarily on the "malleability". Not necessarily competence. A govt mouthpiece should be a dependable mouthpiece.
So when it comes to incidents like this, the ST just does what its programmed to do. Jump up and down for the Govt. Unfortunately, in this case, it was over-enthusiastic and tried adding fuel to the fire too, to stoke the narrative that its just a small minority that's xenophobic.
Can the ST change? That's irrelevant, isn't it? The right question is - will the political masters allow it to change? Which in turn begats the question, is the political masters themselves ready for change.
And I think most Singaporeans know what the answer to that is.