Media ethics down the drain…

This news did not go down well with me. As a woman who once worked for a women’s organisation with a shelter for battered (yeah, that was how we described them then) women, shelters should be private and protected.

If there is no law against it, there should at least be some decency to preserve the dignity of these gals. What is this paper trying to do? Was the photo necessary? [The said photo has been deleted in this blog for obvious reasons].

Tell me what you think.

Chinese girl first to turn up at school for the pregnant

By Debra Chong

September 20, 2010

[photo deleted].

The young girl (left) who showed up at the school today with her father at the school this morning. – Picture by Choo Choy May

JASIN, Sept 20 — The nation’s most controversial boarding school — intended exclusively for pregnant teens — received its first potential student, a Chinese girl, catching the state religious authorities running the facility by surprise.

Accompanied by her family, the young pony-tailed girl dressed in a loose black tunic and tights arrived at the bungalow home next door to the Malacca school at about 9.30am.

The girl’s father is waiting to meet Ab Rahaman, the hostel supervisor said.

Dressed in a blue T-shirt, the father looked upset and was heard shouting at photographers outside the hostel grounds: “Don’t take pictures! Are you stupid?”

[And yet, the opposite had been done with no consideration whatsoever for the people involved. Are they criminals? They are to be judged again and again? Go to hell, Malaysian Insider. You just lost me].

Catching up, finally…

Geez.My last post was on Merdeka Day. How very cruel of me. But the truth is I have not been lazy but doing other things. Just so I do not get bored with life, which I so often do, even though great things are happening here.

Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by what is happening. Since returning to Malaysiakini, I’d have to ‘chase’ for stories too. Takes a lot of time, and at the end of day, after writing 2-3 stories, do I have the energy to say more?

I hope I can be forgiven for this.

But I have been actively sketching (e.g. image on this post is one of my latest creations) and coloring some new artwork which I want to share with you. It’s all I could do at the moment, due to time and space constraints which makes it impossible for me to produce large canvasses:

Meditation

Something to do with Baby Dumping, but titled Untitled.

Altantuya? That’s what most of my Facebook friends thought.

The eye.

A tiger never sleeps.

And I have been active on facebook, though I am reluctant to catch up with Twitter. Am I beginning to feel that blogs are so yesterday?

I owe people a lot of work, including a book review on “Found in Malaysia” by The NUTGRAPH, which I am yet to accomplish. Sigh. I’ve been flipping through and reading some pages on this great collection of interviews from time to time.

Sometimes, you need a book like this to remind you “Hey, Malaysia ain’t so bad after all”. Haha.

Since I have been (not silent as you might think) away from this blog, several things have caught the attention and riled up the imagination of citizens – The Musa Hassan retirement; Teoh Beng Hock’s inquest; PKR elections and the continuing allegations against Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng; Gerakan’s soon to be gerak-less and the rising of resident evil Perk(a)osa. What about the letting off of the ‘racist’ Kedah principal?

Cosmetic tycoon Soosilawati’s and three others’ murder was shocking and bizzare. Much like how Altantuya’s murder also shocked me.  But nothing shocks me more than how the papers are going round in frenzied circles to unravel facets of the murder case.

Meanwhile, some good things are happening – like the National Union of Journalists wanting to take up not only ‘bread and butter’ issues but “press freedom’ issues as well.

Hahaha. Isn’t this high time! ? But lets hope the new leadership stands courageous enough to pursue this ideal dream. Lets hope it does not turn into a nightmare for them

After reading about the real face of the MSM (as if we didn’t know already) – read Nazri Aziz ‘spewing his wrath‘ at Utusan Meloya oops Malaysia, I feel so glad to be at Malaysiakini.

Here, we have no political bosses, this much is the truth.

And yes it is a challenge sometimes to balance our (my) stories as Umno politicians and their alliances have openly told me “we do not want to speak to you because you are from Malaysiakini”, I will live with that.

And I might just add next time: It is your loss not mine