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Singapore Press Holdings cross swords with blogger over obituary

Bertha Henson, a former editor for The Straits Times, recently wrote an obituary of a former colleague on her blog which Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) disagreed on certain points noted on the post.

The email from SPH also took an opportunity to take a swipe at the blogger rather than focusing on the post.

Wrote Bertha Henson,

"My old company is pissed at the obituary I wrote for Chong Chee Kin. (See earlier entry Goodbye Cheeks) Journalists and management are upset that I said that Chee Kin felt like a pariah in his last week at work in SPH."

The anonymous letter from SPH went on to criticise Bertha.

Wrote the SPH letter from an anonymous signoff,

"You have been wholly unfair to SPH to put this out in your blog without checking whether it is true. You have in fact failed to practise what you have been preaching so piously in your blog."

Bertha responded to SPH in her blog by stating that she wrote the "pariah" bit from the sms she received before the death of the former colleague. 

Bertha also noted the attack on her blog in the last paragraph of the SPH's letter.


Wrote Bertha, 


"I suppose, given that snarky last line in its letter about “piously’’ preaching and not practising, SPH’s real beef is with my blog. You know, it could have done better than to pick on a couple of pars about a dead man. It’s an obituary, for crying out loud!

As someone I knew would say: Wah lau eh…!"

Wah Lau indeed. 


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