By Terry Xu

It all started off as a gossip in the Eat drink man woman section of the Hardware forum that Ms Nicole Seah, Second Assistant Secretary-General of the National Solidarity Party is seeing a new boyfriend (link).  Based on a photo she uploaded on her personal facebook account. A day later the Chinese newspaper, Lian He Wan Bao of the Singapore Press Holding (SPH) picked up the story and published an article on it.

ST_nicoleseah
(Article by SPH’s Lian He Wan Bao, click to zoom in)

For those who don’t read Chinese, the headline reads: “佘雪玲有已婚男面簿上载亲密照” – (Translation – Nicole seah uploads photo with married man on facebook.)

In short, the article writes that the man in the photo is said to be a married man. Referenced to the earlier post she made on facebook and mentioned that it was captioned with (“Sweetheart” with a smiling face).

The man in the photo was named as Steven Goh and listed the comments that accompanied the uploaded photo.

The article then followed on to state that the man got married in 2009 and met his wife in Malaysia. Described his marriage as being unstable which started off as a long distance relationship with the wife later moving to San Francisco to live with him. The newspaper states at the end of the article that they were not able to get a reply from Ms Seah before the time of publishing.

So what is it that the newspaper trying to report on Ms Seah?  Mentioning that the man in the photo is a married man especially with the headline? A casual reader would glance through the papers and assume that Ms Seah is having an affair with a married man. And seriously, was this story such a news breaker that it had to be published before Ms Seah could even reply to the papers?

Asiaone_changeofheading
Asiaone also posted an article based on the Chinese report and named the article, “Nicole Seah uploads photo of her with man believed to be married.” (link)

Which for the casual reader would just read it off as Ms Seah is dating a married man, the same idea of what the headline of the Chinese article had implied.

The content is the about same but with a slight difference. It explicitly states that the man in the photo, Steven Goh was married in 2009 and divorced in 2011, so why the need to imply in the headline that she might be dating a married person?

nicoleseah_clarifications
Response by Nicole Seah on Facebook

Ms Nicole Seah has put up her response on both her personal facebook account as well as official fanpage condemning the two articles and described it as an example of gutter journalism. She says that no one had called her to clarify on the story and went ahead to publish the story.

There has been close to 900 shares and 4,500 likes of her status update at time of post.

After the massive upheaval on social media in regards to the two articles, the original headline on the wanbao online article has been changed from to, “佘雪玲有新恋情面簿大晒亲密照” (Translation- Nicole Seah has a new relationship, reveals intimate photo on facebook.) and Asiaone also initially changed its headline to “Nicole Seah says she is dating man in photo she uploaded in Facebook” but eventually ends up taking down the entire article from the website.

At point of post, Ms Seah followed up with another facebook post of exploring the possibility of suing the papers for libel and slander. She used the example of former Workers’ Party MP, Yaw Shin Leong and former Parliament Speaker and PAP MP, Micheal Palmer to highlight the double standards of the reporting by mainsteam media.

She also asked for the assistance from the general public to write in to SPH to ask that they refrain from double standards and baseless accusations in their reporting.

nicoleseah_followup
Follow up post by Nicole Seah on possible legal actions

Even though the headlines for both the Chinese  and English articles online have been changed, and even taken down for the instance of the Asiaone article. But the damage has been done to Ms Nicole Seah’s reputation especially that the printed Chinese newspapers are already in circulation and that in the Chinese papers, it is said that the man, Steven Goh is a married man, not a divorcee as stated in the article by Asiaone.

Will the Lian He Wan Bao and Asiaone publish an apology for what they have published about Ms Seah on their papers?

Mr Shanmugam said during a dialogue session during the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) Conference on Civil Society that the Government has faced “tremendous pressure from the public to update our harassment laws to deal with online harassment”.

“But then, you also start thinking in terms of workplace harassment, because harassment is not just online. Workplace harassment, sexual harassment, cyber-bullying, bullying of children, schools — a whole lot of issues. I think one’s got to look at all these issues together.”

Yes, I do strongly agree with what he said and add that character assassination should be considered as part of the whole deal about harassment.

The government should walk the talk and start off by dealing with the state controlled media on its gutter journalism before even taking the high moral grounds of tackling cyber-bullying.

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

为治病妻花光积蓄 中国男子冀筹医疗费用助回国治疗

中国籍女子因严重疾病目前于我国就医,却因昂贵的医疗费用,花光积蓄。其丈夫为救妻子,向公众筹款,希望能筹集资金,待妻子病况较稳定助她回中国治疗。 网络募捐平台Give Asia日前分享,一对中国籍夫妇在我国工作,而其妻子雯冰(译名)于2020年初被诊断患有严重型再生不良性贫血(severe aplastic anemia)和肺结核,病况复杂。丈夫表示,在接受严重型再生不良性贫血的治疗前,医院必须先控制他体内的肺结核。经治疗后情况稳定下,她出院继续治疗肺结核。 不料在出院后,她开始发烧到40度,于是在2月1日再度回到医院治疗,并被诊断为严重肺炎。 丈夫指出,经过几天的抗生素治疗后,却不见好转,反而是他的氧气饱和度也逐渐下降,甚至需要仰赖呼吸机支撑,于2月10日进入重症监护室(ICU)。 然而,随之而来的并不只是妻子状况不见好转,医疗费用也逐渐暴增。由于两人并非我国公民,因此无法享有任何医疗福利。其医疗费用从两万余元累计到19万余元。丈夫表示,在妻子入院之际,他们已经支付了一万余元,但随着情况不见好转,他们必须再支付至少13万5千元的押金。 “医疗费用不断上涨成为了雯冰、我以及家人的压力来源,也因此,让雯冰只同意某些治疗程序”,丈夫表示。 因疫情影响滞留新加坡 截至目前,丈夫表示他们已经将耗尽近6万元,而剩下的钱也会用其支付住院费用。由于在新加坡治疗严重型再生不良性贫血相当昂贵,因此两人也希望,能够回到中国继续治疗。然而,近期因武汉冠状病毒的肆虐,让他们只能滞留在新加坡继续接受治疗,但却也要继续承担昂贵的医疗费用。 因此他们也希望透过筹款,除了可以减轻在新加坡接受治疗的负担,也希望能够让妻子可以安然回到中国继续治疗。…

S’pore flag displayed on the ground in Sengkang

In an act of either carelessness or ignorance, Sengkang West grassroots leaders,…

COVID-19 vaccine: Russia’s hastened vaccine trial sparks controversy, Indonesia commences clinical trial of China-made vaccine, UK partners with Novavax

The world is anticipating the availability of a suitable COVID-19 vaccine soon…

How a politician responds to questions says a lot about what they really think about freedom of speech

During the Q&A session at the United Nations Association of Singapore Model…