Further comments on the ‘Starhub employee and Youtube’ blog posting

Just a few days ago, I posted a blog entry about Terence Tan, Starhub employee who was fired as a video of him goofing around in the office was posted on Youtube.

Chan Hoi San, Head of Human Resource at Starhub wrote a letter,”Temp wasn’t a Starhub employee”  to The New Paper (a Singapore tabloid) to clarify that Mr Terence Tan, key protagonist in the Starhub-Youtube saga that spawned so many blog entries and comments amongst bloggers in Singapore was actually not a Starhub employee at all.

He was “a temporary staff member engaged by an appointed manpower agency assigned to Starhub to promote and sell Starhub products and services to customers”.  Hm…so he was hired by an employment agency whose name we know not, to work for Starhub, so technically, he was no employee of Starhub, and was in fact employed by the un-named agency. So he was told to wear the Starhub uniform and asked to sell Starhub products and services to Starhub customers, both current and potential ones, but is not a Starhub employee. Chan reinforced, “He was never an employee of Starhub”. Well, talk about technicality! But of course, who would blame Starhub for taking pains to clarify this technicality. Afterall, any hint of bad publicity could break a company in today’s competitive and often fickle consumer market. (But Dolly Parton would disagree as she once so famously said “There is no such thing as baa-ad publicity” when asked to comment on the use of her name for the cloned sheep Dolly, based on their mammary connection! But I digress…)

Starhub’s contention is that the Youtube video of a (quote) *Starhub employee* (unquote) horsing around gave the public the wrong and negative impression of Starhub employees, and hence did not give an accurate reflection of the workers in the company. But of course, as they were not the Terence Tan’s employers and so did not fire him. They merely asked the un-named agency to do so…

The added info provided by Chan made me realise that even traditional media such as the press have not always investigated the incident thoroughly before printing their stories. Perhaps the conventional media have also been swept up by the speed brought on my new media such as online press articles and blogs to post the latest info, so much so that at times, some of the investigative processes the conventional media is known for, are sacrificed as well.  

It’s also a good reminder for bloggers to also take care to post accurate information. That said, of course, many bloggers also rely on traditional media for some of the info. Bloggers need to be aware that such info comes mediated. That info could also sometimes be inaccurate. If that is the case, then bloggers also need to inform their readers of any new info that surfaces on an issue they have blogged about, so that the readers get an info that is as updated and as accurate as possible.

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