Friday, March 25, 2005

How do they know their citizenship but not their sex?

Singaporean journalists media personalities have apparently never been taught that the basics of a story are who, what where, when, why, and how. From Channelnewsasia, which is no better or worse than the rest of the media:

The haze may have clouded the skies but not the moods of some Singaporeans at East Coast who wanted their outdoor fun at the start of the long weekend.

One person said, "I can smell the smoke in the air when I woke up...I think it's ok to come out to the open even if there's a haze, because the haze is not that strong enough to affect..."

Another added, "Yesterday was very bad. Unless it is very high, more than 100, then perhaps I might consider to stay at home."

A third commented, "Because I don't notice any haze around that's why I came out to enjoy myself..."

Meanwhile, one foreigner commented, "This morning I came to Singapore. I noticed the haze in the air and I could smell the smoke... doesn't bother me at all."

So how do we know the first three people are Singaporeans when we don't even know their names, or gender for that matter, and we didn't even wait around to let the first person finish what he or she was saying? Why is it more important that the fourth interview subject is foreign than anything else that could be said? Why "foreigner" and not "Australian," or "Indonesian," or "Brazilian"? So much for who. Wouldn't we like to know how the air quality affects older people or kids or if it matters what they're doing, like rollerblading?

And what's with "Meanwhile"? Was the foreigner really being interviewed simultaneously with the Singaporeans?

1 Comments:

At 10:32 AM, Blogger Brian said...

I suppose I was applying the standards of print journalism to a television channel. Print journalists would eliminate "Meanwhile" as superfluous. Especially when such a literal interpretation is possible. The earlier part of the article made it seem the Singaporeans were speaking in sequence ("A second added..."), emphasizing the temporal sense of "meanwhile." I doubt that the Singaporeans were actually speaking in sequence.

I suppose I was also making the broader point that Singaporean journalists do not use words very precisely (so who here does, then?).

There is no sense of political correctness in Singapore. There are no taboos about statements that by American standards are blatantly sexist or racist. Today, a friend suggested that 1955 is a close approximation to explain how socially conservative Singapore is.

 

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