Over the past few months, our student editors are simply too caught up with work to handle the Enquirer, leading to an article drought.

But here’s your ang bao for the Dragon Year: We are back and working hard to kick-start this enterprise again!

For this semester, we will be releasing a mixture of stories, commentaries and live updates. We cannot guarantee regular updates all the time, but follow our Facebook and Twitter and you will receive our new stories easily.

We are also in a process of transition. Over the past year, the online journalism world has transformed. New websites and information providers have entered the fray. The Enquirer is in the process of redefining our niche in the marketplace, and suggestions for improvement are welcome!

We are welcoming a new editor on board: Grace Chew. She is currently in her second year at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, NTU.

Other members of the editorial team — Chua Yini, Kuek Jinhua, Rachel Loi and Bhavan Jaipragas — are taking a well-deserved rest from this project. We thank them for their contributions and wish them all the best.

Why can’t we get our best into parliament anymore? To ensure that minority representation doesn’t compromise meritocracy, Singapore should build an alternative to the GRC system soon.

Tonight, more than 30,000 people attended the Workers’ Party rally at Serangoon Stadium in Aljunied GRC.

They cheered, screamed and waved the blue and orange flags in frenzy, and concluded the rally with the recital of the Singapore Pledge, led by Pritam Singh. The WP’s ‘A’ team, including Low Thia Khiang and Sylvia Lim, has made many speeches to win the hearts and minds of Singaporeans. WP’s star catch Chen Show Mao is a top corporate lawyer by international standards and has plenty to contribute to Singapore.

Over at an open field in Ubi is the incumbent PAP team, anchored by one of Singapore’s more popular ministers, Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo, and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Lim Hwee Hua. Yeo has largely escaped the scathing online criticism faced by other ministers, and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has weighed in to lend his support at its rally.

But the true battle lies in a realm of silence—the fence sitters who remain undecided about their final choice till polling day.

Unlike the core supporters of the PAP and opposition parties, these swing voters are probably less partisan-minded, liking and disliking different individuals from both sides. They will feel the pain of losing a favourite candidate on one side no matter how they vote.

Another dilemma lies in Marine Parade. Tessa Wong, a Straits Times journalist and a first-time voter at Marine Parade, wrote a column how torn she is between Nicole Seah (NSP) and Tan Chuan Jin (PAP), opposing candidates in Marine Parade GRC.

NSP's Nicole Seah (bottom right) and PAP's Tan Chuan Jin (top right) are in opposing teams in Marine Parade. Both are immensely popular in a teams that contain a mix of stronger and weaker candidates. Unfortunately, voters can only choose 1 team, and hence either Tan or Seah, to represent them in Parliament. Photo: Insing.com

“Both Ms Seah and BG Tan are candidates whom I badly want to see in Parliament. One represents my desire to see more spirited voices in Parliament who can speak on behalf of young Singaporeans. The other represents my desire to see a change in the PAP’s style of governance. If you think about it, they’re actually complementary, representing my ideal government: one that strives to run Singapore well while thriving on robust debate, one in which young people feel included.”

Wong is not alone in feeling this way. One thing is increasingly clear to voters in hot spots like Aljunied and Marine Parade. Whether the PAP or the opposition wins, Singapore will suffer a big loss.

This painful choice means that Singaporeans have to re-examine the GRC system more carefully after the polls. While it was originally created to ensure minority representation, GRCs did not allow voters to choose between individuals, forcing them to choose between teams that has a mixture of strong and weak candidates.

A better system of minority representation should be created, such as creating a minority quota of candidates presented by each party.

Besides ethnicity, improvements can be made in the representation of opposition and religious groups in Singapore too. In a Lianhe Zaobao article, half of PAP’s 24 new candidates are Christian even though they only come from 18% of the country’s demographic. In contrast, there are only 2 Buddhists despite coming from the largest religious group in the country (33%).

There is also a danger that opposition voices would not duly represented in Parliament despite the 9 NCMP seats. In a column titled “The PAP’s greatest fear” dated 31st March, Chua Mui Hoong from the Straits Times wrote that:

“The PAP has worked hard to project Singapore as an open, vibrant society globally. It has tried to meet Singaporeans’ desire for more opposition in Parliament without real risk to its dominant position. A clean sweep at GE 2011 would thus send a very wrong signal to the rest of the world and to Singapore, about the foibles of the Singapore electoral system.

That should be the biggest fear for the PAP: not a freak election result that sends it out of power, but a freak result that returns it to 87 out of 87 elected seats in Parliament.”

A near-clean PAP sweep despite an expected falling popular vote would also polarise Singapore further. Dissenting voices with insufficient representation in parliament might be disillusioned with the political process and become more difficult to win over in the future.

All these must be taken seriously because while Singapore had been polarised across racial lines in the past, this is less so today. What are seeing, however, is the polarisation of Singapore across partisan lines.

The government should not underestimate the deadly power of partisan divides in a country. Take an example like Thailand, a very homogenous country in langauge, ethnicity and religion. Polarisation between the elites in Bangkok and the peasants in the countryside has led to clashes between the ‘Red’ and ‘Yellow’ shirts.

The PAP has taken great pains to ensure racial minorities are represented in parliament, they should start caring about opposition and religious representation more carefully too.

Regardless of the outcome in Aljunied, Singapore has to find a way to ensure minority representation without harming meritocracy in Singapore. Both are important to our country and their interests should not conflict.

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In the absence of competition, even the most talented individuals can slack. A two-party state may not be so bad after all.

Each country sends only one team to the World Cup, and so there should be only one Team ‘A’ for the government instead of a two-party democracy.

That was the analogy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong used when he addressed students on April 5th at the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum on the issue of leadership renewal for Singapore.

He based his argument on Singapore’s small size—with less than 6 million people in the country and slightly over 3 million citizens, there is only just enough talent to fill in key positions such as the Finance and Defence ministers.

In other words, two dominant parties would split the tiny talent pool and would not do good for the country. PM Lee hoped Singaporeans would keep voting for the ruling People’s Action Party, keep the dominant one-party system instead of throwing weight behind opposition parties.

So does the Prime Minister’s argument make sense, or has he scored an own-goal? Let us examine this using his soccer team analogy.

Firstly, the team that represents a country to the World Cup is assembled from an elite team of players from various clubs and leagues. Players in overseas clubs would fly home to serve their country. Even if some players come from arch-rival teams, they would have to put their differences aside to train together and do their best.

The same could also be said of politicians: the best ‘players’, regardless of ruling or opposition allegiance, would step forward to lead the country, except that the ‘head coach’ of this team would be the electorate, deciding who should be in and who should not.

It would thus be naïve to simply tout the one-party, “Team A” system as the best way forward.

There are many good reasons to include best players from various teams, instead of relying on handpicked members from one ‘A’ team.

While there might be several mid-table ‘B’ teams in the league, they had fought through intense hurdles to score a few goals, and granted, quality players could emerge here too.

In fact, we could see some promising candidates from the opposition camp already. New Workers’ Party potential candidate Chen Show Mao has multiple degrees from top universities. National Solidarity Party’s Tony Tan and Hazel Poa have first class honours from Cambridge University.

In addition, veteran opposition MPs Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Khiang have served in Parliament for several terms, while Workers Party chairman Sylvia Lim served as a vocal non-constituency MP since 2006.

These two opposition MPs, in particular, had to contend with years of hurdles placed in their path to political success. They include biased HDB upgrading policies, lack of proper office rooms, and unfair media coverage.

Despite these uneven playing fields, they scored quite a few goals and that speaks volume about their passion and calibre.

We should not fear that there is not enough talent in Singapore to form two ‘A’ teams for our government. This is because talent is not a fixed quantity—their abilities will grow and strengthen under competition. Far from dividing the talent pool, competition pushes the existing talent to their full potential. Without competition, players will stay stagnant.

Talent is not just about qualifications and background, but also environment that brings out the best in people. Remove a competitive environment and even the best qualified players will lose the motivation to keep up their standards.

A two-party system could even produce A* teams instead of one A team, while a one-party system may decline to B standards in the absence of competition and the passing on of old leadership. The lack of talent is simply an excuse that falls short under further scrutiny.

Editor’s note: Check out our photos and ground reactions by Wallace Woon and Chua Yini. The Enquirer was also involved in liveblogging at the Forum.

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Thank you for following us on live blogging and twitter. Please check out our pictures, ground reactions and our editorial.

The Enquirer has brought live updates of the Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum in NUS as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong addresses us about “Leadership Renewal – The Fourth Generation and Beyond”. We have used two channels:

1) Twitter and Facebook by Chua Yini. -Our Facebook page is linked to Twitter so it will be updated simultaneously.

2) Live blogging on this page by Bhavan Jaipragas:

LIVE BLOGGING – 5th April, 2011

1840: The Enquirer team is inside the University Cultural Centre (UCC). For those who aren’t aware, the UCC is also the venue of the annual National Day Rally. Seats are filling up fast – students from all three major universities spotted in the crowd. ST reporters were also spotted at the entrance to the UCC.

1846: It looks like tonight won’t be a repeat of the 2009 KRMF where questions were pre-determined by the organising committee. Emcee just asked audience ‘to think about question that you want to ask PM Lee and ask them during the Q and A session’.

1903: Spotted in the press box Belmont Lay and Fang Shihan from New Nation.

1904: PM has arrived.

1905: Ho Ching is here as well.

1906: Project director of KRMF 2011 Mah Yi Xin to deliver speech.

1907: “We are interested to hear about the new candidates lined up by the People’s Action Party.” – Yi Xin

1908: Yi Xin – Young people get information from netizens and foreign media, both of which give new perspectives outside of the mainstream media.

1909: PM is on stage to deliver his address.

1910: PM: Theme for today timely, vital question which concerns young people’s future.

1911: PM will address two things – how did singapore come to ‘be sitting like this’ (stability etc) and how to maintain it.

1912: PM is now giving a history lesson – talking about the Barisan Socialis in the 1960s.

1913: Consensus, system, leadership renewal has made Singapore work.

1914: Education and homes – created a egalitarian society with post-independence policies.

1917: We got the policies right, politics right, got the system right – adapting it to suit Singapore.

1918: Going through the rationale of political developments in Singapore since the 1980s – NCMPs, NMPs, and the elected presidency.

1919: More space for alternative voices has been created

1921: JI, SARS, global economic crisis – we have done well through crises.

1922: PM cites Economist article ‘Go East, young bureaucrat’. Editor of Economist had come to Singapore to interview PM, MM, civil servants and even the Opposition.

1925: PM talks about Tharman’s appointment as the chairman of the International Monetary and Finance Committee. Tharman was elected because of Singapore’s economy has a reputation as one that works. Also because of Tharman’s high standing in IMF circles.

1926: Question is not who is the next PM, but rather how we can continue this virtuous cycle.

1928: Basic factors will not change, all Singaporeans will have a stake in the country. All Singaporeans must benefit from growth, but harder for the lower income to do so with globalisation.

1930: Your parents may be well off, but if you are not deserving you will not benefit from their position etc. (paraphrased)

1932: PAP’ will not reject critics, in fact the party will seek them out. That’s the way to not become fossilised.

1933: Nothing stopping NMPs from challenging the government, asking questions.

1935: Political system must be such that it’s easy to get into politics, form a party.

1936: It’s cheap to contest, but harder to win elections.

1937: Each generation must produce people of quality who can can further Singapore’s interests.

1939: On what is required for good leader for the future – Not just high GPA and IQ, but character and value as well.

1940: Within two terms, new MPs will have to choose their new leader, a new PM.

1942: Two-party system could cause sectarian, racial split in Singapore. This will divide the society and that’s the end of Singapore.

1943: Another way would be a split on class lines – like Britain which has the Labour Party and the Conservatives.

1945: We are trying to avoid this – whether you are a CEO or a taxi driver, one party should be able to represent you.

1946: Main reason why two-party system won’t work in Singapore – We don’t have enough talent in Singapore to form 2 A teams.

1949: With two party system, even if things don’t go wrong, standards will drop.

1950: SM’s Goh’s comments on two-term cabinet ministers was a personal one. PM does not agree with it, not possible because of a shortage of talent.

1952: By all means join the Opposition…but so long as the government is competent I hope you will find common cause with it.

1953: Leadership renewal needs your help to succeed…we can maintain the virtuous cycle. – End of PM’s speech.

1957: Ng Pei Ying, law student from NUS is the moderator.

2000: Question on GRC system. Michael Palmer standing in SMC, doesn’t it debunk the rationale behind the GRC system?

2001: PM Lee – One swallow doesn’t make a summer. Palmer hasn’t won yet, mind you. Even within the Chinese it matters whether you are a ‘Teochew nang’. You just look at Hougang (Bhavan – where arguably Singapore’s most popular Teochew Low Thia Khiang is the MP).

2002: Question by a NUS sociology student: Absolute mobility versus relative mobility. How will you ensure that the 4G leadership understand Singapore’s social reality?

2004: PM’s response – Even if you come from a poor family, opportunities are there…You don’t have to go to RI, HCI, ACSI to get a good education. We want to make all schools good schools.

2006: Talking about encounter with Naval Base Secondary School students. Ordinary neighbourhood school who experience enrichment activities, including a field trip to Spain…Final thing that determines social mobility is motivation from parents and children to move up ladder.

2008: Question from Pol Science students – “In the unfortunate event that the PAP loses one or two GRCs, what are the contingency plans, and will it derail renewal plans”

2009: PM – ‘when you go into battle you don’t ask what do I do if we lose, but what do I do to win.’

2010: Why are our leaders picked rather than have them rise to the fore organically? Using your own analogy, World Cup teams have leagues, teams to choose their national teams. If we pick, will our leadership turn out like our national team?

2011: PM – If I leave leadership to emerge from the bottom, magically, will magic always happen? if I didn’t invite to people to tea, no one will come forward…The only other country which does what Singapore does is China…with their ‘super powerful PSD’ which head hunts top talent for the CCP.

2017: Question from Hougang constituent – why is the Opposition ward not treated as well as the PAP wards?

2018: PM – Low Thia Khiang says he has enough money for lift upgrading…everyone gets the basics, but those who support the PAP, they get the extras like lift upgrading

2019: Rebuttal: In that case, can I pay less taxes and have my national service obligations lessened?

2020: PM – Can’t be done because Hougang within the Singapore mainland, but you can vote for the PAP to change things!

2021: Who is most capable to take over the reins, outside of MM, PM, SM, Teo Chee Hean, Wong Kan Seng if the five of you sat on the same plane and died from a crash? Answer – we don’t all take the same plane at the same time. But if it were to happen, those who remain will have to pick their leader.

2025: Question on why new citizens are being selected as PAP candidates?

2027: Question from LKYSPP student from Kazakhstan: How does MM contribute to political stability, will the position be institutionalised? Do you have aspirations to become MM?

2030: Question on ministerial pay: Will the unionists/civil servants who become office holders and earn the high pay pegged to the benchmark earn the same amount of money from the private sector?

2034: Supplementary question from student who asked about ministerial pay – why are Cabinet Ministers paid less than Barack Obama?

2036: Question – How can the public education system encourage young people to get involved in politics?

2039: Question – Will the government consider appointing high calibre Opposition members into the Cabinet if they are elected into parliament?

2040: No…we must have one-party discipline.

2041: Question – What advice do you have for those who want to get into politics?

2043:PM – …”put your heart into it and do your best”

2045: Question: How do you ensure SAF generals who come into politics connect with the people?

2046: On Tin Pei Ling – online chatter doesn’t raise the quality of the debate. DIscovered in party convention, was from Christopher De Souza’s PAP branch…confident that she will make a good MP.

The liveblog coverage ended at 2048HRS. For updates after this point, refer to the Enquirer’s twitter feed.

Tweets that are followed by Yini:

-Next qn: PAP has trouble attracting people form private sector in PAP, but not the case for opposition. Why is that so?

-PM: Not sure if the opposition and PAP are looking for exactly the same people in the private sector.

-PM: We have many baby incentives. Result: almost zero.”

-PM: Making people happy is beyond the ability of any govt. Sg has one of the best environments in the world for people to lead wholesome lives.

-And that concludes the Q&A session!

-‎3 salient points (by moderator): first, leadership renewal is a cornerstone of good governments.

-second: the notion of young leaders, challenge to ensure continuity of talented leaders.

-third: to what extent should leadership renewal be an organic or planned process?

-That concludes KRMF 2011! PM leaving for refreshments. Hope you enjoyed our tweets!

-Enquirer signing out!

That was the second live coverage by the Enquirer in a year. Last year, we sent 4 reporters to the NTU Ministerial Forum. Check out our stories and tweets here.

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As the rest of the world weeps with the survivors of Japan’s worst recorded earthquake and tsunami, SM Goh sparks a debate about Singaporeans’ “noisy” response to our own floods.

Nothing attracts more attention than the drama of catastrophes. While we are spared from the close proximity with death and despair, the disasters in stricken Japan weigh heavily on us.

What if disasters happen to us one day? Will Singaporeans be able to take it like the Japanese? Will our diverse country unite to help one another, blind to colour and class differences?

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong seems to doubt so. Days after the powerful earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, he compared the “stoic looking” Japanese coping with the disaster to the “noise” Singaporeans made to the floods along Orchard Road last June.

Mr Goh said: “How many of you followed the latest tragic events in Japan with the tsunami…and then put into context our floods in Singapore against that kind of disaster?

“I am not saying we shouldn’t do anything about the flood. But the amount of noise you made with just sporadic flood compared to the Japanese. I saw them on TV. Very stoic looking. You don’t see them crying. This has happened, just get on, that’s the kind of spirit you want to have and you call it nation building.”

But it was hardly fair of SM Goh to compare the reactions this way. Singaporeans were unhappy about the floods which could be prevented, in contrast to a huge, unstoppable tsunami.

They are two different issues; the scale alone is disproportional.

But his words bring another question to the spotlight: Do Singaporeans need a national disaster on the scale of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami to coalesce a sense of national solidarity? Are we spoilt in the absence of natural calamities?

While immensely tragic and painful, external threats and disasters had this unintended effect of uniting a society, as history has shown.

In the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks, grieving US citizens bonded across partisan lines and formed support groups to comfort those who lost loved ones. During China’s earthquake in Sichuan in 2008, the country rallied together too; citizens volunteered to help out the hardest hit areas such as Wenchuan when the scale of destruction and casualties overwhelmed the country.

The same sense of national unity and community spirit is happening in Japan’s case now. Of course, it helps that centuries of natural disasters had built a resilient culture that stands up quickly after so much death and destruction.

While disasters bring out the best in everyone, a sense of national spirit and belonging can still flourish in a safe and stable Singapore. A key to achieving this is an inclusive society where feedback and criticism are respected, not a top-down leadership which dismisses all comments as “noise”.

Singapore’s leaders should sieve out the good comments from the brouhaha that usually follows such incidents. If a natural disaster were to hit our city-state, we will be able to pick ourselves up like the Japanese, confident that the government is listening thoughtfully to the people with an open heart.

After all, Singaporeans have stood up to adversities such as SARS and economic downturns in the past before. When the time comes, Singaporeans will find themselves too.

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Savage: But I like the inconveniences.

Savage: All right, then. I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.

Here at the Enquirer, we claim the right to be unhappy too. The people who make up this new team of editors are not savages, but we do think that Singaporeans live in too much comfort to desire change, even progressive ones. So we like to do uncomfortable, unhappy, inconvenient things, or in local jargon, to stir some shit.

We’ll be publishing stories on a weekly basis about issues that strike the heart of Singaporeans, especially students in NTU. So join our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter to get latest updates.

Since journalism is about change, we aim to provide quality in-depth reporting and news analysis for our readers, and hopefully change some comfortable lives.

Evil people who have a burning desire to write, or have tip-offs for potential stories, don’t hesitate to contact us! (We don’t bite)

It all has to start somewhere, so why not right here, right now?

-The Enquirer Team

Contact details

Email: yini@enquirer.sg

Dear readers,

The Enquirer will bring live updates of Ministerial Forum in NTU when Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong addresses us about “Singapore: City of Buzz”. Maryam Mokhtar, our reporter on the ground, will bring you live updates from:

October 29, 6:30pm to 9:30pm Twitter and Facebook

If you are unable to attend the forum but have burning questions for SM Goh, email us at news@enquirer.sg

Editor’s note: Here are the stories written after the forum:

1) A light hearted Ministerial Forum by Chua Yini

2) Building a city of buzz – Concrete instructions please by Ng Kaijie

3) Disapointment over bad questions by Janie Chee and Gu Fenghui

Tweets that appeared on our Facebook wall:

On September 17th, The Straits Times reported that NTU had “tumbled 101 places” in the revamped Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. Similarly, Today carried a 170-word news brief with an attention-grabbing headline “Oxbridge, NTU drop in world rankings”.

Little coverage was given to this year’s QS World University Rankings published on September 8th. Under the QS list, Singapore universities remained relatively stable, with NUS claiming the 31st spot and NTU at 74th.

Why then, did the media choose to use such attention-grabbing headlines? After all, a “tumble” or a “drop” can only be considered if results were to be compared using the same system.

Nevertheless, not all reports had drawn overly simplistic comparisons. The Business Times, for example, wrote that Singapore’s universities are still “ranked among top universities in the world”, and categorically explained the change in ranking systems.

Not surprisingly, NTU president Su Guaning stepped forward to respond to the controversy. In a commentary published in The Straits Times on September 27th, and in a lengthy email addressed to all students and staff, he pointed out that it is misleading to compare NTU’s placing this year with last year’s.

As Phil Baty, editor of THE World University Rankings had said, “any movement up or down since 2009 cannot be seen as a change in performance by an individual country or institution.” This was also quoted in the ST and BT reports.

The fuller story

While THE claims that they have created the “most rigorous, transparent and reliable rankings” so far, respect still needs to be accorded to the other two major ranking systems, QS and Shanghai Jiaotong University List.

These ranking systems have been around for years and still remain widely used. Ignoring them would lead many readers to believe that NTU collapsed overnight, which is not the whole truth.

If the QS ranking had been included in the initial coverage, readers would have had a clearer perception of what caused the fall, regardless of whether the QS or THE is more highly regarded.

As academics around the world debate over the methodology of different ranking systems, the media should reserve its judgment and report the facts in a balanced way.

Students are aware of problems in NTU and like any university, it has its strengths and weaknesses. The Enquirer will not shy away from addressing these issues.

Nonetheless, unfair reporting could potentially damage the job prospects of thousands graduating from NTU. Regardless of existing or revamped rankings, NTU has established its strengths through its faculties, and these should not be completely overshadowed simply by NTU’s performance in these rankings.

For example, the Nanyang Business School (NBS) as well as the engineering programmes have firmly established reputations and received international recognition. The NBS is one of the only five business schools outside the United States to be awarded the AACSB Accreditation in Accounting.

On the other hand, whilst the university’s arts and social science faculties are relatively new, they have set new standards in developing and nurturing creative and artistic minds here in Singapore.

Good reporting would acknowledge the different strengths of various faculties, allowing employers to get a clearer and more balanced sense of the quality of NTU graduates applying for a job.

The future

The impact of the new ranking methodology remains to be seen. How much the perceptions of students, employers and academics toward NTU will change is still unknown.

It will be an uphill task for NTU to get over this thorny issue. The university needs to work hard to dispel misconceptions. While some employers are careful not to judge a graduate based on university rankings, there are definitely a few who are not.

If the methodology remains, NTU will not see its ranking in THE rise quickly to the top 100. On the bright side, NTU’s ranking should not drop as dramatically again either.

The best solution of course, is for NTU to continue learning from great universities like Harvard. Regardless of what ranking criteria is used, the Ivy League university continues to come out tops.

If we can build our university to such a standard that it can withstand a variety of ranking criteria, we will have nothing to worry about.

It will take years, but we can start now.

After all, Harvard too, once started out nowhere near the top.

The founding team behind the Enquirer, Lin Junjie, Zakaria Zainal and Chong Zi Liang, worked without academic credits and pay, juggling school work and internships at the same time.

They had little to rely on, but NTU readers relied on them for more than they imagined. Within the Enquirer’s short active lifespan, our writers captivated NTU students with in-depth stories on a Ministerial Forum, the debate over the University’s name change, and interviews with politicians.

Sadly, the Enquirer could not escape the curse of student media – finding new blood. Unlike the working world, students move on quickly after graduation. Student committees barely last a year.

The Enquirer’s fade out after a promising start may have delighted its critics who predicted it wouldn’t last; but while the pioneers have moved on, the necessity for a free student voice has not.

This necessity means that the Enquirer will always have a place in NTU. The biggest concerns of ordinary students – transport, hall, academic issues – must be covered no matter how controversial they are.

As the NTU administration interacts with students to foster the best environment for learning and research, I believe an independent campus media is still valuable.

The Enquirer serves only one interest – the welfare of students and staff of NTU. We are not funded by the University, nor any student body.

When difficult situations arise, straining relations between the student body and administration, the Enquirer will serve as an independent press, providing honest journalism to bridge the gap.

In addition, the Enquirer will strive to bring journalism to new heights. To all media students, the revived website will be your platform to break into convergence reporting.

This new method of reporting strives to provide the most holistic coverage to you, our readers, by combining multiple media – writing, audio, video, and photography.

In the process of achieving our goals, the Enquirer face the same challenges as our pioneers had – lack of writers, funding, and time.

Furthermore, in our effort to sustain a free media, the new team will have to face any legal consequences alone, unlike recognised campus publications which have the support of their official publishers.

However, the new team has learnt from past mistakes and drawn inspiration from our pioneers’ tenacity. With a fresh start for the Enquirer, we pick up where our founders left off, and look forward to serving the NTU community.

Currently, the bulk of our writers, inclusive of the editorial team are on internship with local papers or overseas media companies. It has been difficult juggling between the duties of running this news website and also the responsibilities of our respective internships.

Nevertheless, the Enquirer has a few stories that will soon be published that will engage our readers despite the tough juggling act.

Meanwhile in the about us section, we also have included a statement of our finances and the kind donations that we have received from our readers who support the Enquirer. This is our commitment to be open and transparent about the costs and benefits accrued from running this news website.

A majority of these funds will be pooled to support – part incentive and mainly basic remuneration – our reporters when they are out on the field. They will continue to produce rigourous and groundbreaking journalism that reflect what the Enquirer stands for.

Meanwhile, we hope that you, dear readers, will continue to support the Enquirer as you have before. Thank you.