25 SPH employees “caught” surfing Temasek Review in 3 days
From our Correspondent
[Read our latest rebuttal to Mr Geoffrey Pereira's second article on 13 November 2009 here]
It was revealed by Straits Times journalist Mr Geoffrey Pereira that 25 SPH employees were “caught” surfing Temasek Review using its computers during a period of three days. (read report here)
Mr Geoffrey had earlier wrote an article on his blog in reply to our article published on 2 November 2009 about our system administator detecting a IP address from SPH “grabbing” content from our site from 10 pm (31 Oct) to 1pm (1 Nov).
Unfortunately, Mr Geoffrey had misunderstood the gist of our article and misinterpreted it as an accusation that SPH had “attacked” our site. We have since clarified the matter here and here
In his rather misleading article, Mr Geoffrey wrote that a total of 25 SPH employees had visited Temasek Review during a 3 day period:
“Data made available to me covered a 3-day period starting before and ending after the alleged attack. It showed that about 25 SPH employees – including yours truly, a regular reader – visited TR; but we did not create the kind of flurry of Net activity that would slow a server down, much less precipitate a DOS.”
It was not known if these employees are journalists or administrative staff of SPH. Neither did Mr Geoffrey say if they are surfing Temasek Review as part of their official duties or will they be “punished” for visiting our site during office hours.
It did not come as a surprise that Temasek Review was being visited by SPH and TODAY journalists on a daily basis to fish for news to write with most of them lacking the basic courtesy to even acknowledge their source of information.
For example, when ex-ISD Director Mr Yoong Siew Wah published on his blog on 28 September 2009 about the wrong entry in the SPH propagandist book about the PAP “Men in White”, it hardly caused a ruckus.
On 13 October, we broke the story on Mr Yoong Siew Wah demanding that MM Lee undo the “damage” done to his reputation (read article here)
A day after we published the article, SPH journalist and Men-in-White writer Richard Lim contacted Mr Yoong Siew Wah and offered to retract the potentially defamatory sentence that he was sacked as CPIB director due to some “improprieties” in a case involving former Solicitor-General Francis Seow.
On 16 October, we met up with Mr Yoong Siew Wah for a face-to-face interview over breakfast. (read the interview here)
A few hours after our article was published on the same day, TODAY journalist Neo Chai Chin called Mr Yoong and requested to interview him in the evening after his medical appointment at NUH.
SPH journalists who are keen on certain news can just feel free to contact us directly. At the same time, we are more willing to help them publish their articles which are not approved by publication by their senior editors.
Despite our sometimes fierce rhetoric against SPH journalists, we have really nothing against them personally.
In fact, we are very sympathetic of the situation they are in: they are paid pittance and made to work long hours.
SPH pays fresh graduates only about $1700 – $1800 a month. An editor with a few years experience will command at most slightly more than $3,000.
Singapore journalists are really lowly paid compared to their counterparts in other developed countries.
Even in Malaysia, Malaysiakini pays its new journalists who just graduated from university between RM $2,000 – $2,500 a month.
SPH can only afford to pay its journalists “peanuts” because it is the ONLY media company in Singapore. Our young, budding journalists have few options but to work for them.
When our media company is finally incorporated next year, we will give our full-time journalists a better deal. SPH journalists are more than welcomed to join us.
You can be assured we will treat you with respect, kindness and love and most importantly, you will be free to write whatever you wish to develop your passion for journalism to the fullest without worrying if you will lose your rice bowl the next day because you write some unflattering comments about some PAP leaders in your articles.
Related articles:
>> Debunking Mr Geoffrey’s claims in his misleading article: “Attack on Temasek Review: not SPH
>> Attack on Temasek Review: not SPH
>> SPH IP caught grabbing “content” from Temasek Review
>> Debunking Mr Geoffrey’s claims on “IP spoofing”
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Sith on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 6:21 pm
TR’s offer to journalists under SPH payroll is good as it would be interesting to see how such journliats develop their articles within a less censored environment and speak up their own mind through their “liberal” articles to be posted in TR site.
Roy on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 7:12 pm
Now this is disturbing. While I know that they’re on company time, and they’re using company resources to do so, but are those people going to get into trouble for visiting websites during working hours?
It’s going to be like having some dragon breathe down their necks at work from then onwards. Talk about stifling atmosphere!
Sinkapore on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 7:22 pm
Roy, this is internal affairs for SPH and their management to handle, no one of us can say anything.
alan on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 7:50 pm
good thing u guys are not journalists. your facts are so wrong. your estimate of what sph pays is so far from the truth that it really makes your website’s credibility laughable.
Damon on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 8:24 pm
@alan
if you have better information and sources pls state them to debunk the article. by blindly saying that what was stated was wrong holds no ground. the credibility of your comment is laughable.
wat? on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 8:39 pm
this whole affair is laughable. stop it already.
admin on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 8:46 pm
Hi Alan,
The information was given to us by two former SPH journalists, one of whom is our regular guest columnist whose identity you can find out by browsing the CVs of our writers.
We are referring to the STARTING PAY of fresh graduates with no working experience whatsoever.
If you want to disprove our claims, at least your source and identity or you will make your own credibility laughable.
Time for Change on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 8:54 pm
“At the same time, we are more willing to help them publish their articles which are not approved by publication by their senior editors.”
I certainly hope that SPH journalist take up your offer. I feel they are being stifled at Shitty Times.
janetnt on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 10:09 pm
Pot calling the kettle
Watcher on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 10:19 pm
Keep up the good work TR!
It is despicable of the Striats Times to use material from TR and refusing to allocate credits.
In the academic world, this is called plagarism. So, Straits Times editors and that includes Geoffrey Periera are simply cheats. In the academic world, they can be sacked. Students are treated with IMMEDIATE FAILURE. So much for Journalistic Credo in Straits Times. Sigh
XIIIblackcat on Sat, 7th Nov 2009 10:45 pm
This might just be interesting. Will we be seeing a mass exodus of journalists next year?
Ah Gong on Sun, 8th Nov 2009 12:32 am
The only possible solution like what SPH had done in the pass to weed out competition is to buy its competitor. Pay TR a few Millions and problem solved. I hope that TR would not allow that to happen.
ls on Sun, 8th Nov 2009 2:25 am
Maybe ST journalists come to TR to read what they wish they could write but know that their newspaper will NEVER publish?
thomas on Sun, 8th Nov 2009 12:29 pm
Well its obvious that the person writing this article have no knowledge of currency rate conversions. Currently S$1=RM2.44, so earning RM2500 is only S$1024! That is journalists here are earning 75% more than them!
lalaland on Sun, 8th Nov 2009 12:34 pm
i’m sure you all can get a media licence to publish newspaper la. hahahaha!
tothomas on Sun, 8th Nov 2009 2:16 pm
dear thomas, you must be a complete idiot. malaysia’s currency isn’t relative to singapore’s. just because we spent 2dollars on chicken rice in spore doesn’t mean they will spend 5RM in malaysia.
so no, the author didn’t make a mistake, u just think ur too smart for urself.
sujin on Sun, 8th Nov 2009 6:12 pm
very cunning. turning attention through this article for recruitment opportunity. don’t pretend to be surprised that SPH journalists visit your website as if this is the first time you realize that. so what if they visit TR? surely they visit other websites too??
Brad Lim on Sun, 8th Nov 2009 8:06 pm
What do you expect from a newspaper with no backbone always pleasing the master.
Sinkapore on Mon, 9th Nov 2009 2:35 am
@sujin, visitng a website and grabbing or ripping a website is 2 different things altogether, please don’t be confused.
Scenario: I VISIT your house and you offered me tea, coffee and dinner, thats fine.
I VISIT your house but without your permission or knowledge, finished all the food in your house.
Get it?
Tan Yeong Hong on Mon, 9th Nov 2009 12:15 pm
Quote : You can be assured we will treat you with respect, kindness and love…
All i can say is LOL.
janetnt on Mon, 9th Nov 2009 9:28 pm
a non-pirated music cd in malaysia start from RM45 onwards petrol cost about RM2 a liter. A manicure cost above RM35 in JB. Just because chicken rice is cheap doesn’t mean everything else is.
So Thomas is right about the currency conversation must be applied to this article.
tojanetnt on Tue, 10th Nov 2009 1:04 am
since when did petrol in Msia get more ex than singapore. music cds are more ex cos they are being imported so yes the conversion must be made to account for the difference. everything else, and even most imported daily neccessities are still priced accordingly. there’s no need to do the conversion.
KK on Tue, 17th Nov 2009 10:21 pm
hahaha!! this article is truly laughable! sph journalists paid $1700-1800 a month! haha! haha! Then blanga workers are earning $100 a month! TR you made my day! hahaha!! I am developing abs from laughing already…
Please update yourself on the latest market trend instead of relying on an old fogey of a reporter to update you on outdated info. Whatever happen to realtime journalism? Your info is archaic!