"Stomp got Stomped by Stomp"..

Stomp, the online citizen portal for The Singapore Press Holdings, has admitted that a photo showing the MRT moving with its doors open is a fake.

Interestingly, the online citizen who posted the photo was found to be Stomp's own content producer. She is now an ex-content producer as Stomp has sacked her for lying that she took the photo, found to be a fake and from an unknown Twitter post.

Wrote The Straits Times,

STOMP would like to apologise for the posting on June 20, supposedly showing an SMRT train that left Lakeside station with one set of doors open. The report, submitted by a STOMP content producer, has been found to be fabricated.

The content producer, Ms Samantha Ann Francis, had submitted the photo to STOMP, claiming that she had taken it when she was at Lakeside MRT Station at 10.15pm on June 19.

Following investigations by our staff, Ms Francis has admitted that she had in fact taken the photo off a posting on Twitter. The original tweet has since been removed.

SMRT, the train operator of the mentioned MRT, was in top defensive mode in respond to the story as it would have affected their safety record and assurance that trains would not move whenever a door is opened.

SMRT investigation included searching CCTV of the content producer at the said MRT station and even investigate her ez-link card to check her transaction history. The link to that story is now not found, but you can find it at hardwarezone forums at http://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/eat-drink-man-woman-16/%5Bnews%5D-smrt-not-lakeside-mrt-station-3783124.html.

The incident has raised several issues with Stomp. One being that the online citizen portal where it gets stories from the public but is now shown that stories are actually posted by own staff posing as online citizen journalists.

Also, some are asking how easy it is for SMRT to track individuals..

Comments

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