TOC apologises to Ms Stephanie Chok

Mr Alex Au, in his blog, has highlighted what he termed “an ill-judged and irresponsible scoop”.

Mr Au was referring to the letter written by Ms Stephanie Chok on the Chinese worker who was sentenced to jail for attempting suicide at the Ministry of Manpower’s building and who was jailed for 10 weeks.

When TOC’s Managing Editor, Andrew Loh, received the email containing the letter, he mistakenly thought that it was meant for publication on TOC’s website and did not seek Ms Chok’s permission before doing so.

For this, Andrew has apologised to Ms Chok in private and Ms Chok has graciously accepted the apology.

We offer our public apology to Ms Chok here.

As for Mr Au’s other assertions – for example, about TOC’s “social conscience” – we shall leave it to our readers to judge.

The plight of the migrant workers has been a focus on TOC for the last seven months or so. TOC provided intensive coverage in its Migrant Workers Focus Week in January this year. Indeed, TOC has continued to highlight the problems faced by migrant workers. We have also been and continue to be in constant and regular contact with the workers and those who are helping them. TOC has recently assigned a reporter specially dedicated to migrant workers issues as well.

TOC will continue to highlight such issues – whether they concern Singaporean workers or foreign workers.

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