TODAY has suspended mr brown's column

Poor Mr Brown, I just read about his suspension from his blog. This is such a nightmare!

Golly, from all the comments and blogs out there, the Singapore Blogosphere has well and truly exploded! TODAY and K Bhavani has sent out their non-committal replies to the responses of bloggers and/or ordinary Singaporeans.

Here are the excerpts:-


The reply from TODAY

Dear [ ]

Thank you for your feedback. We will not be publishing any correspondence on this issue. Shoud you feel strongly, you may want to wish to redirect your views to the source of the letter.

With regards.
[ ]
editorial assistant
did: [ ]
fax: 6534 4217
news desk: 6236 4888
email: [ ]@newstoday.com.sg



and here is the reply from MICA/ K Bhavani

Dear []

Thank you for your feedback.

Mr Brown gave his take on several issues in his column last week. I responded, on behalf of the Government, to his column as it was necessary to address these issues.

Yours sincerely
Bhavani

K BHAVANI
Press Sec To Minister and Director, Corporate CommunicationsDepartment
Organisation Management Division
Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts
6837 9865 6 6837 9837
www.mica.gov.sg

Creative People, Gracious Community, Connected Singapore

Needless to say, the blogosphere exploded.
The blackout in the newspapers, the Mr Brown column's suspension and the non-committal replies have made many bloggers angry at the government and MICA, especially Ms Bhavani in particular. Even the MICA tagline has been lambasted.

Some have accused the government of not practising what they preach.

I see that the voices of dissent on the internet are building and growing in momentum. Valid comments from concerned people have not been published (the irate and nonsensical ones, pls ignore) and therefore things are likely to build up. Unhappiness at the government, in seemingly unrelated issues will all be sucked into this quagmire if some big shot doesn't stand up to quell them in a sensitive and decisive manner. Preferably quickly too.

Otherwise, the 4 million smiles campaign may end up as 1.332 million frowns, 1.668 million "bo chaps"/"no choice" straight faces and 1 million "I am service personnel /Civil Servant" smiles lacking in sincerity.

God forbid that we have another "NKF saga" right before the Annual Meetings of the IMF & World Bank Governors. Horrendous, horrendous. I actually see the analogy here.

"What started out as an article on golden taps became a scandal over CEO remuneration and corporate governance that brought Singapore's Richest Charity to its knees."

"What started out as a satire on Singapore life could just become a tipping point for the unhappiness of "downtrodden","stressed out" overworked" citizens leading to [your guess is as good as mine]."

Oh my, what a tangled web we weave. MICA should have left the Friday article well enough alone. The reply highlighted the "Mr brown" article 100 fold and started the backlash that is now continuing to snowball. The invisible hand is no longer invisible and I see resentment and hear it too.

There are many ways MICA ccould have handled the matter. A discussion, an official letter to the editor/mr brown etc. Instead, they chose one of the most high-handed and public ways. So ugly. Such a PR disaster.