TRS: The Gutter Press, Bad Journalism and Lazy Writers.

I am appalled at TRS, shame on them. They have descended to the level of the gutter press - any kind of website is only as good as the people you allow to write for you and in the case of TRS, there seems to be a serious lack of quality control when it comes to sourcing articles to put on their website. Take this piece for instance, the writer SK Pang clearly did not research his piece and is making up 'evidence' to suit his purpose. He wants to claim that homosexuals do not suffer discrimination in Singapore just because he has seen gay couples showing affection in public. And this statement tells you just how unscientific his approach is, "I have not witnessed a single case myself. Have you?" Yeah right. As if his personal observations should be the yardstick we all use to decide what laws we should have govern our society. Hey SK Pang, newsflash: the world does not revolve around you.

Let's talk about the Little India riots for a moment - I do not spend time with the Indian migrant worker community in Singapore, I do not know enough about the problems they face admittedly because of my lack of experience with their everyday lives. Yet I would never claim, "I have not witnessed a single case of discrimination myself - have you?" Just because I have not personally seen the problems faced by the Indian migrant worker community does not mean that these problems do not exist - it is wrong to imagine that your (very limited) experience of the world. This is why I also implore bloggers to look at information available out there, do your research, speak to people who have first hand experience or interview experts if necessary when you are writing about an issue that you are not an expert on.

If you are unprepared to engage these people who know more about you on the issue and you are stubbornly going to base your entire opinion on the issue on your (very limited) experience on an issue that doesn't directly affect you, then you are going to come across as a stubborn, ignorant idiot who is just too lazy to do his homework. Just because SK Pang has some gay friends/colleagues/acquaintances doesn't mean that he has actually spoken to any of them about these about how they feel about gay rights in Singapore. Certainly, he's made no effort whatsoever to reflect their experiences or their opinions on the issue (nor is he interested in doing so to produce a balanced argument).

Always verify your facts before mouthing off online

As for his lack of research, let's look at one of his claims. "In July last year, an American man was arrested after he was caught on a London sidewalk preaching that homosexuality is a sin" Okay I live in London so let me talk about what it is like to live in this city. Imagine if this same preacher was a white supremacist who claimed that white people should rule over non-white people and that blacks and Asians should not have equal rights - what then? Should there be a free for all for hate speech like that?  It is the same laws that protect all members of the public from this kind of bigotry and hatred because everyone: gay or straight, men or women, old or young, black or white, rich or poor - are equal and have the same rights to be protected by the law against any kind of hateful attack like that. Is this a bad thing? I am glad that there are laws like that to protect me in the UK because they define us as a civilized society.

Likewise, for his claim about this bakery in Oregon who discriminated against gay customers, "They (gays) also threatened wedding vendors who did business with the bakery. Even the family’s children were the targets of death threat"  Really? Pardon me for not taking your word for it, but I would rather have a hyperlink to the original source of your story so I know that you're not twisting the facts and changing the story to suit your case to make gay people look like nasty demons. SK Pang is an unreliable storyteller - I simply don't trust his version of the story and he needs to cite his sources to have any credibility with the readers. Perhaps it's because I have a very high standard for my blogging and if I am going to quote a case, I would always provide a link to a credible source for the story.

SK Pang claims that gays would make death threats over cakes - really?!

Like this one for instance, a five year old child actress was sent death threats after being in a show where her character has lesbian mothers. And oh,here's another link to the same report on another website, and yet another website as well - just so you know that I am not making up this story out of thin air. You want to talk about getting death threats - what kind of sick people would threaten a child over something like that? What about the countless number of gays and lesbians around the world who receive death threats and are indeed beaten to death for their sexuality in places like Uganda? It is ludicrous that SK Pang can try to tug at your heartstrings over this supposedly bakery in Oregon receiving death threats (really?) when gays and lesbians around the world constantly face harassment, bullying, intimidation, death threats and real violence every single day of their lives.

I could go on ripping this SK Pang's article to shreds but it is clear that he is using a platform to voice his hatred, homophobia and bigotry and even if the people at TRS won't hold him to account for this terribly badly written article, I will. This SK Pang is a lazy, hateful, homophobic bigot who wants to have the right to raise his children to be as hateful and bigoted as he is. Well SK Pang, I certainly hope that your children will grow up to be a lot more enlightened than you are. What if one of your children turn out to be gay? What then? Wouldn't be poetic justice?

What if one of SK Pang's kids turn out to be gay or bi?

As for the TRS, I know they have this dilemma - they want to reflect the voices of real, ordinary Singaporeans, but that often means them picking up articles which have been very poorly written, poorly researched and lacking in substance. Okay, I grant you that certain members of the public in Singapore really do think like that - there are people who are uneducated, inarticulate, ignorant and prefer to remain ignorant and form strong personal opinions on their limited experiences (rather than doing a bit more research) and SK Pang does reflect that kind of Singaporean. (This does remind me of the module I did at university about the voice of the subaltern.)

But what does it do for their credibility to their website? Should they exert more quality control in terms of what kind of articles they do choose to feature on their website or is simply capturing the 'authentic' voices of Singaporeans their goal? If the latter is indeed their goal, then I'm afraid it creates a frightfully unpleasant reading experience as nobody enjoys reading poorly written articles. Furthermore, capturing such voices come at a price: simply cutting and pasting such articles fueled by hatred, bigotry and ignorance only spreads homophobia - is this what they want? What is the purpose of TRS then? (I would love to hear from them on this issue.)

As usual, please feel free to let me know what you think about the issue - thank you very much for reading.
Part 2: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/my-follow-up-to-trs-quality-control.html
Part 3: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/capturing-voices-of-sublatern-trs.html