“My 1st week as a Sunday Times intern” and extra scoop had to delete a post!
Terence Lee deleted his post of his “1st week as a Sunday Times intern” after it was Tomorrowed.
Maybe Terence should learn a bit from Ian Tan, an ex-journalist with SPH.
Wrote Ian Tan,
As a journalist with SPH, I couldn’t blog about the stories I did, because I didn’t want to leak secrets or hurt the feelings of newsmakers. Some of my stories could do great good, or great harm, depending on which camp you fell into, and I was never comfortable with the level of responsibility wielded with a mere pen.
More frightening was the fact that the person that you mention today on your blog for some innocent reason, may end up being your boss in the distant future with a huge chip on his/her shoulder.
Unfortunately, the Internet has something call Google and Google has caches.
From Google Cache,
I’ve never thought it would come to this.
At precisely 12:47pm on Saturday, I am blogging away on my desktop in the cold Straits Times office. Why the big fuss? Because as a journalist, we’re not supposed to be stuck in the office! We’re not supposed to be this free!
One word to describe everything so far: nice. I spent my Tuesday and Wednesday in the classroom learning how the system works. Thursday was Labour Day and Friday was spent reading up on SOPs and doing a bit of street interviewing.
A fascinating thing about the SPH building at Toa Payoh is just how gigantic and confusing it is. The 3rd floor of the Podium building is actually the 2nd floor of the Annexe. Or something like that. There’s a running joke it’s build like that so as to confuse ISD officers who might be coming after journalists, and how Mas Selamat might actually be hiding in one of the corridors. Har har.
If there’s anything interesting I’ve learnt so far, it would be how shy Singaporeans are towards the media. It’s not like the three of us interns were selling insurance. And it’s not like we were asking explosive political questions. Most of them waved us away, some shook their heads with a wry smile. It’s not like being quoted in the papers will land you in prison or something.
Well, the most they might do is conduct a background check on you. Hah. Especially if you’re a member of certain opposition parties (I’m just joking, by the way).
In any case, we did our interviews in Toa Payoh Hub, aka Heartland Central. After much begging and pleading, the three of us, Stacey, Becky and myself finally managed to score four interviews. If getting people to talk to you was hard enough, imagine how difficult it must be to have a photo of them taken as well!
It wasn’t standard SOP, but it’s required for the section we’re doing. And it must be full length shots as well. It’s not like you’re going to become notorious or anything right?
So please, if you see a poor journalist approaching you for an interview along Orchard Road, don’t hesitate to give your opinion, name, age (females especially), and occupation. It most certainly won’t kill you.
Well, it’s interesting to know some things haven’t changed since I was an intern 10 years ago. Back then, when I did street interviews or straw polls for my stories, most people didn’t want to be quoted either.
The blog post seems rather harmless to me when I wrote it, but perhaps too revealing about how SPH operates. Better to tread on the side of caution, especially when I’m still new to the organisation.
Actually I thought that the post seems fine and in fact a little endearing about a day in the life of a journalist. Few people seem to appreciate the efforts needed to get a really good story, and the hoops that journalists need to jump through.
How about we turn the situation around and interview the journalists instead?
I knew the folks back at www.itjournoasia.com and, boy, did they have a hard time trying to interview the SPH journalists.
ITJourno Asia reported on the IT media scene in the ASEAN region.
I guess it could be the fear that most Singaporeans have when they are interviewed that their words might be twisted or it might be used against them.