was rather curious when i saw a post by a friend about a blog by a certain famous mr brown. that post captured a picture showing the screenshot of an email sent out by mediacorp's sales department making a sales pitch to get people to quickly book airtime for the primetime news block following the japanese tsunami. time registered on the email was 4.44pm on that fateful day of the tsunami. slightly more than 2hrs after the disaster struck.
when i read the comments (most of which were posted after some time when the wrath of the earthquake and the tsunami became clear...), i was disappointed. disappointed by the fact that there were many people who took on a self-righteous stand and were quick to condemn mediacorp. allegations that sounded rather horrible were flying off like no one business. and there were people who went as far as extrapolating that all singaporeans are like that, or that the gahmen was quick to want to earn such ill-gotten money... (doh! what has the gahmen gotta do with this?!) etc. of cos there were people who stood by mediacorp. these people obviously understood the business and sales well. they understood the challenges of professionals in sales and how difficult it could be at times to make a proper sales pitch without sounding controversial. for me, my thoughts were that the email might have sounded a little insensitive, but on the whole, i thought - what the heck, there was nothing wrong with it... afterall, it was a sales team trying to reach out to their key accounts and trying to get them to buy airtime. frankly, i thought it would be stupid if they had not done it. it was no different from people trying to sell security services after the collapse of world trade center immediately after that fateful day in sep a decade ago. seriously, if the issue was one about mas selamat being captured, i bet you no one would have bat an eyelid! and for sure, the email wouldn't have been published in mr b's blog!
anyway, i reflected on the whole thing. and my own take was that the sales person could have tried a little too hard to sell news airtime and perhaps, being overzealous, could have sounded a little insensitive. the email also mentioned about "urgent" (and many have blasted mediacorp for this too), but looking at the time of the email (1644hrs) and the next closest primetime (1900hrs), i would have inserted the word "urgent" too if i were the one sending out the email! imagine the need to authenticate and confirm a sales, to come out with the adverts, to do the artwork, to liaise with the production team, etc... (and oh, i need to mention this - we cannot expect the sales person to know the details of the news. they are not the journalists or the reporters. and so, i can assume that at 1644hrs, they probably would be making a pitch with only sketchy idea (if any) of the extent of the disaster).
as for the uncalled for hostile comments, i reflected on it and concluded that most, if not all the commentors were singaporeans. singaporeans tend to be quick to condemn and seldom spare a moment to reflect (and i admit i am also like that at times). and looking at the time stamp, most of the comments came in only when the horrors of the magnitude of damage became clear. thus, it would be logical to assume that people's emotions would be rather raw and that they are still coming to terms with the horrors of the disaster. and in such a state, reading a mail (that sounded insensitive) would probably evoke immediate hostile responses. but to me, this was no excuse to condemn other parties. this was not how a civilized society should behave. i also thought the comments reflected on the commentors themselves. for many, it showed how childish they had been and how they have jumped to conclusions without seeing things in perspective. commenting on issues when things are a lot clearer is always easy but i thought they should also reflect on whether the picture at 1644hrs were that clear (much less to the sales team!). also, i thought many of the commentors had been unfair to pass such judgment on mediacorp.
today, mediacorp issued a statement where they unreservedly apologized if the email had sounded insensitive... i was a little disappointed. mediacorp had done no wrong if you asked me. but when i read the email a little closer, it was clear that mediacorp had stood their grounds. and of cos, many of the commentors seemed appeased by the apology... again, it reflected on them...
:-)
ps: i really wondered why mr brown published this email in the first place. by doing so, hasn't he also not tried to capitalize on the tsunami to get people to visit his blog? or perhaps, he was no different from those childish commentors? or perhaps he was simply - a shit stirrer?
