Temasek Review decides not to proceed ahead with appointment of Kelvin Teo as its political correspondent till further notice
November 4th, 2009 | 
Author: From our Correspondent
Three days ago, we made an announcement on our site that Kent Ridge Common (KRC) writer Kelvin Teo has joined the Temasek Review team.
We had initially agreed to fund KRC on a long-term basis and had a cordial meeting with them.
Unfortunately, we are caught up unwittingly in the internal politicking of KRC. A few days later after the meeting, Kelvin contacted us and expressed his desire to join Temasek Review due to “personal differences” with his colleagues at KRC.
He claimed that he wanted to “sever ties” with KRC completely and bring his old files entirely from KRC to ours. We suggested setting up another site Kent Ridge Review to house his articles.
What transpired next is beyond our imagination with KRC publishing a notice on its site “condemning” Kelvin for his actions and implicating us as a result.
Till now, we are still kept in the dark over many things and we are concerned if there is involvement of “external” stakeholders with a vested interest in the new media which may jeopardize our operations.
As we have clarified earlier, Temasek Review has NOTHING to do with what happened at KRC. All we ever wanted is to lend our support to a promising site in order to establish a presence in NUS.
Due to the adverse publicity created by the saga, we have decided to put our appointment of Kelvin Teo as our political bureau chief on hold till further notice.
In the meantime, Kelvin will continue to write for us as a paid guest columnist, however since he is no longer a member of the Temasek Review team, he cannot claim to represent us in any official capacity or setting.
Kelvin will be furthering his studies in Australia next year and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors
We sincerely urge all feuding factions in KRC to resolve their personal differences and get their house in order. KRC is an up and coming site and it will be waste to let it floundered.
The Temasek Review has earlier offered to sponsor independent students’ dailies. After this bitter experience, we have decided to withdraw this offer.
Pending sufficient manpower and resources, we will set up our own students’ sites in the three universities instead of working with existing sites with their own complicated internal dynamics and politics.
We are looking for first-year NUS, NTU and SMU students to run the sites which will be entirely owned and funded by us.
The students will be given a bonus of between $500 – $1,000 when the sites reach a certain milestone in their readership. In addition, they will be paid for each article they write and event they cover. More information will be released later.
If you are interested to hear more about our offer, please email us at: temasekreview@gmail.com
Posted in 25 Responses to “Temasek Review decides not to proceed ahead with appointment of Kelvin Teo as its political correspondent till further notice”
Loading ...
Alex Tan Allan Ooi AWARE Chee Soon Juan Chiam See Tong Claire Lee David Widjaja DBS Dr Allan Ooi Dr Silviu Ionescu Dr Vivian Balakrishnan Foyce Le Xuan highnote5 Hong Lim Park Jack Lin Xinli Jack Neo Jack Neo affair Jack Neo scandal Josie Lau Josie Lau Meng Lee Lee Kuan Yew Lehman brothers Lighthouse Evangelism MAS minibonds Miss Singapore World NTU stabbing PAP Pastor Rony Tan Ris Low Romanian diplomat in hit-and-run Rony Tan S-League silviu ionescu Singapore Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games Tan Kin Lian Thio Su Mien Tiger Woods affair Tong Kok Wai Top 8 Vivian Balakrishnan Wendy Chong Y O G Youth Olympic Games
WP Cumulus Flash tag cloud by Roy Tanck and Luke Morton requires Flash Player 9 or better.
*sigh* The same passion that drives these students to write with their hearts is now a liability when setting asides egos. I hope all parties involved can put aside their differences and move on. Otherwise you will be used by the establishment as prove that unregulated and unapproved writers are bane for the writing community, and justify their acts of controlling the various print media.
From a reader’s perspective, it is good to hear TR will retain the writing service of Kelvin. I have read some of his articles and he is one of the few who took the initiative to interview opposition members like Sylvia Lim, this is something even TR is falling short of.
As long as we get his quality articles, that is good enough as far as I am concern.
On the other hand, from a business and managing perspective, TR should not put all your political eggs into one basket. You need more writers who will cover the opposition scene if you want to carve a niche from the news landscape of Singapore.
Hey come on lah, have a bit of common decency; when you decide to partner with other people; you dont hang out your dirty linen for all to see. Spare these people some thought; why is there even a need to embarass them in this manner by telling the www?
If the fit is not right; then its like a going on a blind date with a two metric ton beauty in her own mind that you mistakenly thought could harbor great hopes and expectations; but you still owe it to yourself and her to end it like a gentlemen; make a polite excuse (like you have certain strains of madness running in your family, that shouldnt be too hard for you guys) but bring it to a happy ending and if possible even part in good terms, but dont leave a bitter taste.
It breeds bad karma.
Darkness 2009
To the Team at Temasek Review,
IMO, you should have left the KRC vs Kelvin saga alone. The fact you put up articles for Kelvin to explain his position, implicates your interference in an internal matter of KRC.
First lesson of a merger & acquisition experience:
Check out your target first, ask all the stakeholders before buying
TR’s move is prudent and wise… let KRC and the conflicting groups resolve their issues. since TR is no party in this conflict, its better to remain as one as it has chosen to be.
however the conflict between KRC and whatever else group or individuals is a typical modern Singapore style brawl…
student conflicts in universities in any part of the world are nothing new. however you dont see this kind of stabbing in the back, smear campaigns, bullying etc. rather its more decent and civilised confrontations.
somewhat like housewives gossipping and fighting over the silliest things…
when PAP falls, should singaporeans remain as unreasonable, egoistic, dirty and factatious as they are today, then we will see singapore politics becoming like malaysian or thai politics.
in fact such turbulence has already just started in PAP itself as seen in recent PAP gatherings. that pitting and scheming against each other will destabilise the party and bring it down.
i meant to write “this is somewhat like housewives gossipping and fighting over the silliest things… “
@Darkness on Wed, 4th Nov 2009 12:46 pm
I disagree. There is a level of frankness TR displayed that is not seen in more “packaged” sites, especially the mainstream news.
You can call it airing dirty laundry but in some way, TR owe it to the readers to explain the exact reasons rather than leave it to the readers to find it from grapevine.
After all, Temasek Review is not Temasek Holdings, in which we still do not know the real reasons that ang mo would-be CEO left.
Wah got $ to fund others.
Care to share with public where $ coming from?
Hi A Tan,
From our own pockets. The administrators of TR are rich enough to fund a dozen sites at the same time.
Well done.
It is indeed heartening to read this, on how you proceed with things transparently and to the good of readers and writers.
Well done indeed!
Hi cy,
You are right. We are too naive to think that we can work with students’ groups. It is a valuable lesson for us – that all the sites’ domains and servers must be owned by us before we even invest a single cent in them. The writers will be more of “contract workers” than direct stakeholders in the sites. Unfortunately, money still talks the loudest in real life. Sometimes, it is better to work with mercenaries than visionaries.
let’s see….so TR’s offer of monetary support probably a motivation for KRC and KT to break off a convenient partnership
Seems that there is more than meets the eye. Would Kelvin have the technological know-how to re-direct servers to the kent ridge review? who actually did this ‘re-directing’ thing to the krc website?
I agree with btan’s first posting and Darkness.
ANd is surprise that TR is so rich, they should declare their income
Hi janet,
Why should we when we are not even a company?
There are many rich bloggers around, not only us.
Our nearest competitor is even richer than us, heard they have a few sugar daddies too. You should ask them to declare their income first.
TR’s closest competitors is sponsored by FEER or …. ???
Why so rich?
If TR is sooooooooooo transparent, why not tell all as to where its funds come from. Then pple who follow TR wld know whether or not there is a puppet master behind TR’s views, esp when its funds are now openly targeting to finance student sites.
@xingrencha
admin has already replied that it comes from their own pockets. The names of all the contributors are listed under the about us section.
Have you guys forgotten the episode of Temasek Holding and Shin Corp? You should have learnt from their experiences.
Never wash dirty linen for the whole wide world to know. End with amicable solution even if the merger or takeover turns out to be undesirable or a failure.
It is only from failures, that success will arrive and taste sweet. Without failures, success could be just a fluke shot and could be short-lived.
If you feel that I am teaching grandmothers to suck eggs, my apologies.
@XiSd Tay, why did you change your nick? Because I say I want to go Hong Kong look for you?
Who is TR’s closest competitor? I cannot see leh, the rest simply no fight lah.
TR is a business entity. Hence its motive is to earn money. I am surprised why people still suspect its motive. As for declaring income, it is not a public listed company nor is it a public servant, hence why the need to do so?
Before TR, there was no centralised news sites. Only a loose bunch of grousing bloggers on the web who do not dare to say what needs to say.
Besides, I’m tired reading all those propaganda in ST and Today online. TR exist as a balancing scale against those mouthpieces.
@btan, admin
the suggestion for TR to disclose its finances ..is a good one.
TR should lead by example. u demand transparency from gahmen, u should that u r willing to be transparent. walk-the-talk ..even when gahmen doesnt; so ..perhaps in a small way, TR is the BETTER alternative to MSM.
Not just being alternative, but a BETTER one.
anything that is not transparent, sooner or later ..will be subjected to speculation. if i were to speculate, i would say that TR is Dr Chee’s mouthpiece, perhaps financed n directed behind the screen by him ..publishing articles meant to spread lies, mislead and flame angers in people.
But this is just baseless speculation, anyhow said one.
am sure TR is different, u guys will “walk-the-talk” about transparency .n will disclose exactly who financed u.
u’re just not ready yet, rite?
..still thinking which shoe to wear to walk?
Transparency is right, but no, the onus is not on TR to make the first move. Why disclose your strengths only to have your not-so-transparent rivals take you down using information you so glibly provided?
TR simply needs to be transparent about its writers’ backgrounds, political affiliations, news sources, and the like. If TR declares itself to be objective and transparent with regards to local news, political angles and the like, then these are the ONLY areas it needs to answer for.
Admin,
When your competitors are unorthodox, SO MUST YOU. Don’t let devils tempt you to disclose anything which should be simply “private”.
Tell them MYOB if you want to be polite.
I have got more colourful expressions but don’t want to stain your site
Firstly, we have readers tempting TR to release their server logs, then we have readers calling for TR to release their books, what next?
Nice try, whatever group whoever you are, ain’t going to happen!