Update, 19 June 2014, 1230 Hrs:  Two sites , The Real Singapore and Breakfast Network Facebook, took offence with this article. Perhaps we weren't clear the 1st time. We now explain why their posts "failed" to live up to their readers' expectations. 

The Straits Times forum page published a well-shared letter on June 17, 2014, where the writer gave thanks to the ruling PAP government and was highly critical of Singaporean novelist-political commentator, Catherine Lim.

The letter, "Don't take good govt for granted", was signed off by one Eugene Tan.

Click on photo to go to article

Immediately, this forum letter was assumed to be written by Nominated Member of Parliament Eugene Tan.

It was slammed online by readers who felt it was a missive penned by an ardent supporter of the PAP, trying to pass off flawed logic as reasoning, as it showcased rationalisations such as this:

"In September 2001, the Twin Towers came down in the US. In November that year, the PAP returned to power with 75.3 per cent of the votes."

Moreover, as the piece took umbrage at Catherine Lim, it was further construed as a tit-for-tat rebuttal, as Lim recently published her own critical missive of the ruling PAP and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in an open letter.

However, here's the twist: Mothership.sg emailed NMP Eugene Tan, who is also an Associate Professor of Law at the Singapore Management University, to find out if he was indeed the one who penned the letter.

And he emailed back and said, no, he wasn't.

So, that's that and that solves it.

Here are some fails from the local online sphere, where no one checks their facts:

Why Fail? 

The Real Singapore (TRS) does not post every letter from ST Forum. There are perhaps journalistic reasons why TRS decided to post the letter. The content of the letter is probably newsworthy itself and warrants coverage. But what is interesting is that TRS chose to put Eugene Tan's name in the headline. Why would they include his name if they did not think that he is a prominent person? A quick glance through TRS' articles and you will note that most articles featuring names of people in the headlines are of names of prominent public figures. But if you're still not convinced, you can look at the following article they published:

Why Fail? 

The article highlighted that Eugene Tan is a " learned professor". But the forum letter did not reveal the occupation of the writer. Why didn't the editor make any corrections?

Why Fail?

The EDMW-er said that Eugene Tan is an " NMP". But the forum letter did not mention that he was an NMP.

Why Fail?

This is similar to the first example. The Breakfast Network does not share every letter from ST Forum. In fact, this is the first forum letter Breakfast Network Facebook shared this month.

Breakfast Network probably felt that it was newsworthy because they assume that Eugene Tan was a prominent personality.

We also noticed Breakfast Network's close relations with their founder Bertha Henson. In fact, they published most of Bertha's blog posts. So what is Bertha's take on the letter?

She thought that the letter writer was an "NMP".

So that's that.

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