Hup alerted me to an article on STI that relates to that post of mine on friends. It goes that friends are not hotels. Not wanting to repeat myself, and as the journalist writes way better than me, pls go and read it yourself.
Warning: link expires in three days!
(Email me for the article if you miss it - I had, compulsively, saved the thing)
Main..
Irritably, the website is going to start charging, which means that I can no longer read STI as and when I like at my workstation, in between para of my papers when inspiration fails me, when I'm feeling sleepy/ restless etc etc. You know that annoying index in some section of said newspaper? Well, this should be at the top of the list!
Let's check out other newspapers with cyber edition, shall we? BBC is free. NY Times is free. So is IHT and many others. Notably, at one point, parts of Times were for subscribing members only but now every single page seems to be fully accessible again - AND I WONDER WHY..
Point is many of the world's leading newspapers have free-to-access online versions. STI is certainly not the best/ most independent etc. Now, what is the rationale of charging?
Granted, profit margins from hardcopy sales are dwindling. I, for one, do not buy ST cos I can always read online or in the office pantry. But will charging for online viewing make a significant difference?
I remember waking up to muesli and STI (among others) during my four years in Oxford. To some extent, it allowed me to know some of the happenings in SG. I said "to some extent" cos I ended up forgetting anyway but that's not the point.
Thing is, eg, during the SARS months, I was glad that STI painted a very vivid picture from the ground level; it allowed me to appreciate the home situation 3000 miles away. Being in SARS-free UK, I didn't identify with all the happenings back in Asia; in fact, I felt very detached from the whole episode, like it didn't concern me, like I had no loved ones in the SARS-prone region. My only link was STI. I wonder, if, goodness forbids, if similar things were to happen again, would detailed news reach to as wide an audience?
Oh, I forgot. There's Channel NewsAsia now. Oh well, it means that it's time for me to replace the STI link on my IE homepage with CNA! Hmph!
Anyway, it's White Day so let me not grumble so much. No, I receive nuts (since I gave nuts on V Day) but I like the idea :p Happy White Day!
I suggest we boycott STI! And actively go around getting people to boycott them. Unreasonable imprisonment of information ought to be punished. I think someone need to tell them that it's the information age; flow of information is the norm. Oh, btw, this is some good stuff here, should take a look. Google and Amazon taking over the world.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.broom.org/epic/ols-master.html
Yawn, jianren go and sleep la. Us not going to subscribe to it is punishment to them in itself. Just how many people will go pay for it, considering the HARD COPY is only 80 cents. Jianren, you're crazy, yawn.
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