Owen Tan
Temasek Review's readership has exploded ahead of General Election.
Pictures of one of the latest and most infamous candidates announced by the People’s Action Party (PAP), Tin Pei Ling, are the first thing I recall when news broke out of the impending closure of Temasek Review (TR). In all her photos, save for the one in her “white-in-white” PAP uniform, she is smiling. In the first few she has her arm around the shoulder of a slightly overbuilt individual. Then, in subsequent ones, she is smiling, but this time with her husband, apparently on her honeymoon.
These photographs have absolutely nothing to do with her career, and seem unlikely to have been released to the public by Ms Tin’s consent. And in the accompanying article where the photos were taken, an incredible insinuation that the overbuilt man was her former partner was dumped by Ms Tin for a man who brought her closer to her power-hungry ambitions. These accusations – surely a monstrous exaggeration, if not as far from the truth as you can possibly get – seem only possible to have been conjured up by an irresponsible, and immoral tabloid writer, if we include the fact that the photographs were almost surely illegally retrieved.
This article perhaps epitomises the state of TR at the time of its announcement that it was to close, due to a lack of funding and a lack of vision about its future. Amanda Tan, part of the editorial team for TR, stated in an interview with Yahoo! that the goal of TR was to “help cultivate political awareness among fellow Singaporeans”.
TR was not built as a news site, unlike The Online Citizen, a rival website that arguably produces more eloquent and balanced pieces. The site never promised concrete truth to its readers. While political awareness was certainly on the agenda, the site spiralled from its original mission into a quagmire of confused, angry, and poorly written pieces that made the site more of a paradise for complainers.
Just reading some older pieces will prove my point: A newly-minted Singapore citizen from China goes to the National Day Parade and is unhappy about his being made to sing the National Anthem; comments about the personal lives of politicians; and vitriolic comments about the profligacy of the PAP, mostly in acronyms and broken English, constitute TR.
TR reminds me a little of Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, a man who had noble ambitions at the beginning but ultimately got much more on his plate than he asked for. The community of awareness that TR hoped to become eventually took on a life of its own, complete with dissidence and gossip that were virtually unregulated. (Coincidentally, Brutus also reached his demise in somewhat similar circumstances – dying by his own sword.)
Is Brutus really dead?
Would Brutus, however, fake his own death? The announcement made to Yahoo! certainly appears to legitimise the fact that TR is truly closing down, though some NAR readers wonder if it is yet another “infamous attention-grabbing stunt”, especially in view of the upcoming elections.
“There might be more forces to [the closure] than meets the eye,” said one reader on NAR’s Facebook wall.
What TR means to the community
But whether there is a conspiracy or not, and despite my reservations about TR, their closure is a pity and will be a major loss to the online Singaporean community. It is a website much maligned because its strength – acting like a real Speakers’ Corner, for all Singaporeans – is often ignored for its weakness: the tendency to attract noise from empty vessels. The openness of TR makes it easy for people who do not actually have a good opinion (or are unable to articulate it) to publish themselves, as it does for people who do.
More importantly, TR and the local, official news media stand at two ends of the press freedom continuum: the latter is expected, under the majority shareholding by government, to provide incumbent-friendly information to its citizens. The former, meanwhile, makes the most of the unregulated nature of the Internet to give us an inkling of this concept called freedom of information.
The demise of TR will mean that the online community will once again have to find another definition of what liberal public discourse is. TR is a symbol on its own, almost like a synonym for liberal, democratic exchange of words. TR will be missed, because thus far, despite the birth of several new online news sites including this one, none of them have gone – or intend to go – quite as far as TR in its approach to its anarchist openness.
TR brought out the worst in “politics” with its gutter “journalism”, unsubstantiated attacks and racist undertones. It is making the opposition in Singapore looks like dangerous brainless fanatics. Its closure will be celebrated by all but by a handful of morons who confuse freedom of speech and hate-mongering.
“TR was not built as a news site, unlike The Online Citizen, a rival website that arguably produces more eloquent and balanced pieces.”
TOC, please refrain from placing yourself on too high a pedestal. You want to criticise TR, that’s fine, but gloating over your “rival” is uncalled for and downright impolite. In any case, why not celebrate the diversity TR brought to online discourse? Yes, some things may have been unethical in your view, but still, how much more ethical is this piece? Written as if it is some piece of independent review but is truly not. Grow up, TOC.
EK, you realise this is not TOC but New Asia republic right? That this was not written by TOC?
I do not agree with some of the things that TR did. That being said, whta TR has been doing is the same thing that the ruling party of the old, abeit only by one or two characters from the old guards, had done to many potential future leaders of the past.
I see this as a more agressive way of divulging info to the public and some of these had been proven to be beneficial to the public. Contrary to what you said, I tend to think that this is a form of freedom of expression, a kind of investigative ‘journalism’ if I may say. And this kind of investigative reporting is almost absent from the state controlled media. Can you imagine ST reporters writing about such things and CNA reporters go on the scene to show you evidence of stuff that they want to show the public? It will never happen.
Perhaps, a measured way of reporting should be in place but there again, people do get a little wayward sometimes, from both the new media as well as the MSM. It depends on who the readers are and on what position they stand.
Most readers of Temasek Review are over age 21, eh?
You did not mention the role TR plays in promoting public awareness of many pressing social issues such as FT, minimum wage, healthcare costs, retirement funding, ministers’ pay, and welfare that have been suppressed by MSM-PAP. Even MSM-PAP has been forced to address these topics to stay relevant.
The demise of TR will be a severe setback for the people.
Bingo! The Brotherhood once fingered them as a Potemkin site i.e fake opposition site. Now as the GE inches closer, they decide to throw in the towel. So that is like getting all the opposition into a stadium and when they all show up, the lights suddenly gets turned off!
If you ask me, that’s a great way to fix the opposition and those who may choose to ask more of the GE candidates. The deliberate and strategic closure of TR will have the effect of eliminating a platform for many netizens who may wish to express their displeasure, concerns and pressing questions concerning those running for public office.
The Brotherhood were right! I’ve never ever trusted them, they were too Kang Chiong to show case that they were an anti-government site. But when the decisive moment comes, they suddenly decide to disappear.
Oldest trick in the book.
Huh huh huh huh huh huh (evil sinister guffaws). It should be obvious to you all that TR was ”taken down”. Even as we speak, IT forensics specialists are poring over every little posting in TR, identifying the IP addresses, tracking down all the naughty ppl who posted stuff there, then suing them for defamation and obtaining zillion dollar judgemtments, then bankrupting them, and then jailing them, making sure none of them can vote in GE2016. Playtime’s over, children, time to go back to the classroom to learn some very very painful and expensive lessons! The era of Repentence, as promised, as begun. Who needs ISA when the law of defamation is so much more powderful!!