New out, Old in – but it’s back to square one again!
May 3rd, 2009 | 
Author: Ripped by Singaporedaddy of the Brotherhood from “Where bears roam free,”
“Can’t help feeling that the original, old Aware’s agenda is centred on gay and lesbian issues. About every other speaker from the old guards’ supporters talked about homosexuality and sexual orientation. As if there isn’t any other female minorities…………………………….My wife was stunned and shocked that some reporters of the media even cheered when supporters of the old guard made points about gays/lesbians and/or attacks on Josie and gang……………. But the one that takes the cake was the reporter who yelled and jumped with joy when an announcement was made that the motion of no confidence against the EXCO was carried out.
Aren’t reporters supposed to impartial? Isn’t it like the referee celebrating a goal when one side scores?”
To read more click here: Sectarian Christians replaced by Sectarian Gays – So what’s the difference?
Side reads: Find out who is Oh Tham Eng! Find out what is his real mission in the internet? Scroll down the thread and read for yourself, pay special attention to what the internet liaison officer has to say about the subject - learn how to defend yourself online: http://wayangparty.com/?p=8002
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27 Responses to “New out, Old in – but it’s back to square one again!”
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I don’t think anyone should take “Where bears roam free” seriously. He is known as solo bear the and have been posting comments. If you are reading his comments you should know what I mean. I think Wayang should just remove the article and not give any traffic to his blog because he enjoys directing people to it.
Impartiality is a myth. It doesn’t exist in reality. Pretending it does has done more harm to Singapore’s political discourse than good. All ‘impartiality’ and ‘balance’ does is to undeservedly dignify the extremist sides of the debate.
AWARE’s restoration is cause to celebrate by anyone who values equality and democracy.
Who is this reporter? She should be given counselling by HR.
Well can’t someone weep or whoop with joy when one is happy ? Isn’t it a human reaction ? Isn’ t the reporter a human also ?
Do we know the context when the reporter cheered with joy ? Did he or she do it front of a TV camera while reporting the outcome ? I will also object if it was in front of millions of Singaporeans on TV if the reporter did what you say he\she did it , it is not professional .
But in this case he / she was part of an audience in the EOGM. I belive just a harmless action.
Were you there following the arguments given by both sides. If you were, you would be shocked with disbelieve at the answers given by the New Exco given to the floor.It is plain unbelievably arrogant, elitist mindset that is in touch with the ground.
I believe what the journalist did was just normal hunam reaction, so just let it pass ok.
If not you can always blow it up your
it’s not square one, idiot. it’s one notch up
No. That’s a wrong analogy. A referee facilitates the play of a game and arbitrates during contentious moments; a reporter merely reports on what goes on at an event that s/he is covering.
In reporting the news, the reporter should ethically not be partial toward any side. However, a reporter is as human as any other human being is, so personal feelings might creep into the writing.
Ultimately, it is up to the newspaper’s editor to decide what to do with the piece – edit out the offending words/phrases if they might cause offence, leave them there, etc.
In this case, it is the editor who is more like a referee. Nevertheless, I shy away from drawing this parallel – there is no such thing as perfect neutrality, as the decisions or interpretations of referees, editors and the like will always be influenced by other factors both visible and invisible to us.
So please do not fall prey to that simplistic mode of thinking. It is unacceptable.
Editorial bias is only extremely dangerous when it is always favoring the incumbent govt and demonizing the opposition.
E.g. We see it happening in Myanmar or North Korea.
talking about impartiality in journalism, perhaps the news coverage should have been carried out by male reporters as they may not be as emotionally involved as female reporters
I think WP is all for free speech.. Though we may not agree with what solobear has written, it is still his perspective of the whole episode. This is definitively in the spirit of being an alternative media, voice for one and all, and as long as it does not encroach on the various sensitive issues, WP is apparently allowing this to be posted or linked, not like another online media you may also know, who censors unfavorable comments to their write ups, though they sometimes may also have some good articles.
There will be other blogs from people who are there, and who will also write from their own perspectives. We the readers and the ones not being able to be present, have to read it with an unbaised mind, appreciative of all their efforts to provide their perspectives on this saga.
I don’t remember almost every speaker talking about homosexuality/lesbianism. I remember only two-three, at most five times of the entire Q of people did someone touch on the topic of homosexuality openly and directly. And mind you, tons of people spoke.
This is a biased post.
A reporter is paid to report, not paid to invest her emotions into a story. I see that as part and parcel of what it takes to be a professional. This has to be disturbing as what it illustrates is news may not be news as it remains a version of news from a very subjective and skewered viewpoint. Tell me how would the outcome be, if that reporter happened to be on Josie’s camp? If that reporter cannot tahan and wants to ventilate her outlook freely, they he or she should go and start blog, but dont expect me to pay $0.90 to read what what some reporter thinks subjectively, that is really unacceptable when one version of the truth is marketed and sold under a press that holds itself to be “content is king” benchmark.
That is really unacceptable.
If lets say I allow my personal views to get involved with my vocation. Then some students will receive more help than others. I may even decide to give up on others as I do not consider them worth the time and effort. Where will we all be, when we can even get reporters jumping up and down like school girls when they hear something that strikes a cord in their beliefs?
Maybe we should allow SIA stewardess to treat caucasians better than us Asians? Would that be acceptable, I wonder? Where is the professionalism there?
So, The Brotherhood is back on topic and appears to be using hired thugs to convey their views.
Use your own voice. We are weak and disorganised. The Brotherhood has nothing but a string of victories.
We only read and wait.
The main reason why the gay/lesbian topic was brought up by many was solely because it had been the topic of contention as highlighted by the ex-new exco as being the old guards’ weakness and AWARE’s divergence or focus.. watever (make up your mind Josie!)
And the reason why other minorities were not brought up was mainly because I am sure if they had, the old guards and their supporters would have managed to hand them a list of AWARE’s achievements for the last 24 years.
Com’on just because Josie and her team doesn’t know how to argue, don’t blame the topic itself!
“Aren’t reporters supposed to impartial? Isn’t it like the referee celebrating a goal when one side scores?”
I have not seen referee celebrating a goal, but many of us have seen reporter celebrating a good goal, a well executed rescue operation; etc.
Reporter=referee? Another twisted logic of the blind faith.
Reporters take stand, just like us… After all, they are human and they vote, aren’t they?
But reporter reports in neutral stance.
Judges take stand, they can be liberal or conservative, left right or center…
But they stay impartial when hearing a court case, or at least they appear to be impartial…
I agree with sethie, the bears roam free is not neutral as well, mai k k. Look into the mirror and tell yourself, you are neutral, I bet he will struggle with the answer.
this is the kind of alarmist irrational thinking which causes unnecessary over-reaction. aware is an institution which existed quietly for eons. they never pushed their agenda on anyone, except when it came to the obvious unreasonable behaviours like abuse and injustice.
go back to hibernation, which is where you’ve probably been for the past 25y
If a reporter is reporting the live bullying of an organization vindicated, I dont think she should be faulted for showing joy. Granted I agree with impartiality.
But if someone was caught on TV kicking a dog and arrested for that, and the news reporter showed relief or joy at the justice why should she get into trouble?
Anyways I agree that this solo bear blog is completely misleading. As someone who was present at the EGM, I witness that the string of questions were all holding Josie and gang accountable for
1) their motives and true understanding of civil society & feminism under a secular and inclusive umbrella
2) their misuse of 90K (in less than 2mths) of AWARE’s funds when constitution grants only a maximum of 20K a month
3) stating the good work of AWARE’s old guards and how Josie’s gang is detrimental to their important service to women in Singapore
Part of that discourse meant that the topic of including minorities must come up, for they are the ones AWARE protect as well and they could be minorities or less resourceful due to discrimination by race, religion, age or sexuality and AWARE helps them rise above that.
firstly, in that gigantic meeting hall no official press were allowed by Josie and gang.
only AWARE members are allowed in the meeting.
if the reporter is an AWARE member supporting the old guards, why can’t she celebrate the results?
secondly, not all reports are free of bias.
journalists are also free to share their perspective.
if you read news articles widely enough from all countries, you realise that the views are balanced: both pro and against any topic.
sometimes both views are presented in the same papers. other times opposing views are taken by different papers. it’s up to readers to read both sides of the story before making an informed decision/taking a stand.
Thio / Josie and pussy cats team put up a good gracious fight!
Their passion and fight surely keep AWARE in a big spotlight and head-up for all pro-families and Parent so they can ensure the old guard do not promotes gay or lesbian as natural and normal. Parents!!..BEWARE of the AWARE now as you can see many of old guards has many supporters in white shirts are very gays and lesbian..( a bald lady that do not look like a woman or man). Shame on the old guard for using such uncivil way in conducting yourself…PARENTS !!!PROTECT your childrens from the claws of such evil culture. I will certainly pre-alert my children of AWARE now contaiminated by gay and lesbian…as they are using these old guard in AWARE to promote sinful culture…hoep the old guard focus on woman issues ….single mothers and about 12,000 abortions education to our young minds in school instead gays and lesbian culture! Dana Lam
….you need not watch the back doors as AWARE is a public organisation not a private property. Watch you wisdom so you are not being used used by Gays or Lesbian as they have their own platform to speak for themselves. MOE must seriosuly investigate AWARE roles in promoting gays and lesbian culture in schools.
To OO
Did you actually see what solo bear alluded that the reporter did?
Come on – don’t base your criticism on what someone reportedly saw…
Most of us also don’t take what TSM said about AWARE’s CSM at face value…
Unless of course, you are operating on pure faith alone – then like that you win liao, no need to say anything else
I agree with Laremy. A reporter is human. As long as her elated reaction was in a personal capacity, and not on the news, then it is her personal reaction to it. Her reporting can still be completely ethical and unbiased as long as she does not allow her personal opinion to skew her thinking. And as a lot of other people also said, impartiality of the media is not a given anyway, and maybe it’s not even to be expected. Each media outlet has its own agenda.
The other thing that I have to say is that the reason so many old guard supporters spoke about sexuality is that the new guard had made that their point of contention. So the old guard and their supporters were responding to that criticism. Quantitatively, perhaps many people did talk about sexuality. But substantively, what did they say? They mostly stated that the new guard’s assumptions on the CSE were wrong; that the old guard was not pro-gay (neither was it anti-gay); that it was wrong to impose a religious view of sexuality on a secular organisation. The new guard made gay issues their focus, so the old guard defended themselves by stating it was not their focus.
In actual fact, AWARE is about so many other things. Without AWARE, a Singaporean woman’s non-Singaporean husband would not today be able to obtain citizenship. AWARE contributed to a very large extent to the existence and implementation of the Women’s Charter. Without AWARE, the spotlight on violence against women would not be as it is today. Without AWARE, women would have less rights than they do now.
If anything is biased, skewed, and ridiculous — it is this post.
This Solo Bear is a shameless despicable attention whore who leverages on others’ misfortune to promote his blog. Find some other ways to attract readership and blog advertisement money lah!
Besides, I think he’s not a truthful blogger. Blogger without integrity who can claim the stars and the moon. His blog post is even fit to be published here? Yes, for us to laugh at the idiocrasy.
There seems to be a misconception that pro-gay equals anti-family, or vice versa, pro-family equals anti-gays.
Actually, the cause-effects arguments are tenuous and speculative.
Pro-family policies resulted in neutral (or none) actions for singles and single parent families. Similarly, pro-family and neutral-gay views can co-exist.
Parents should not be influenced by scaremongering tactics of the anti-gay views. Be engaged with your children and teach them the values that are important to you (your sub-community). Above all, teach them to be open minded and accept that others in the society can be different.
Respect each other views; live and let live.
Lol! LOTS of reporters have personal feelings and are not robots – do you mean if the reporter witnesses an old woman injured on the street she has to just grip her microphone and not help her out? Of course they can. They are human, dumbnuts.
Bear needs to go to the dictionary to check up the definition of this phrase – “SORE LOSER”.