Who is telling the truth – STOMP or SMRT? Part II

~ By Cheong Yaoming ~

After our story about the STOMP vs SMRT Open Door saga broke yesterday, STOMP released an article about the investigations involving SMRT and Ms Samantha Francis (aka STOMPer wasabi) later on the same day.

This new article does not answer any of the questions posed in our story “Who is telling the truth – STOMP or SMRT?” In fact STOMP is merely rehashing The Straits Times article (22 June 2012, Fri), no new facts or insights were given.

Frustrated readers let STOMP know exactly how they felt. By the time this article was published, there were 72 comments – mostly agreeing with SMRT’s conclusions and questioning Ms Francis’ version of events. Furthermore ‘The Mood Meter’, which allows STOMP readers to vote on their reaction to the article had a resounding 69% giving it a ‘Fail’ rating.

Some readers pointed out the alleged inaccuracies in STOMP’s photos:

westdigi said “I fully agree that the picture was cropped with intention. but personally i dun think it has been cropped by the stomper herself, most likely it’s cropped by the stomp editor himself. carefully cropped out the doors so it will looked like the picture was taken in the cabin, and reason is to create curiosity from the public and so as to generate more views and discussions. ”

jimkb2010 said “Westdigi: Agree. Original submission was never cropped and it was the work of the editor after some readers had doubts about pic taken with moving train…

I stay in pasir ris and I use mrt for the past 15 yrs. the surrounding is so Pasir ris like, especially the 2 lamp post lights pointing to the right. 1 evening I will go and take some pics to confirm

Stomp: can you explain why one of the photos being black-out? Left and right side…This is not the same photo we have seen earlier…are you trying to conceal the fact that the pic was taken outside the train…”

It was also telling how STOMP moderators deleted comments of some readers which only served to further fan the flames of discontent:

blackberrytart said “Seriously, if you are gonna delete comments, why put this damn article here in the first place? Moderator, please wake up. Seriously.”

gambit said “By removing some earlier comments here, already proven something is not right.”

Hopefully the lack of an official explanation from STOMP is a sign that they are meticulously investigating the situation before going public and not lying low in hope that the situation blows over.