噢買尬

A cleaner was mauled to death by White Tigers in the Singapore Zoo today.


More about this story on straitstimes online although I got a bit irritated reading Straits Time's cover of the story because of some unnecessary errors in reporting.

Like referring to the victim as "her" although HE is a MAN,and then referring to the victim as "Mr Montong" in one paragraph and then "Mr Nordin" in another paragraph and then "Mr Mondong"(WHAT?!?) in another as though they are three different people when 'they' are one and the same -- Mr Nordin Montong.

Silly errors really. Easily avoidable if the reporter had made it a point to read through the passage before publishing it online. Which reminds me of a post I posted a week back about Ms Agnes Lin who claims that she was misquoted in an article resulting in a "money-leeching" image.

I decided to give her the benefit of doubt because of what the reporter had to say in defence to this:

“This put me in a quandary. I couldn’t say she was paying her bills through part time work, as her tuition grant guidelines prevent her from moonlighting. I also couldn’t reveal that she was being given an allowance under the tuition bond as she had explicitly asked me not to, so I chose to leave it out”.

No, this is such a lame excuse. You could have chosen to keep her identity anonymous? You could have chosen to keep it vague and say that she does earn her own keep in small ways in order to lessen the burden on her parents? Leaving out the main details?

“I certainly regret the distress this has caused her, we never expected this to happen, and we understand this has caused her some trauma. Still, she shouldn’t be worried about what people online are saying about her because a lot of netizens aren’t held accountable and can be quite nasty.”

No apology, nothing. I think its more than just "some trauma". And Hah-rowww telling her to ignore the apparently "unaccountable and nasty netizens" is really lame advice to someone who has already been stabbed left right centre by your reporting.

But as a final buffer statement, I must say I have met some fine reporters and read some fine reporting. Just that I guess, its always so much easier to notice and remember the bad stuff.

Similarly, even if you were to give Ms Agnes Lim 10 reports on how gracious and lovely a person she is, most people are really only going to remember the first article. About how reckless she is with spending her parent's money.

Life's unfair. But short, so make sure there are no regrets. *head cock* *wink*