Soundbite Censored

Bloggers like 22-year-old Gabriel Seah think nothing of her lack of inhibition. 'The Internet is a free society, there is no reason why anyone should not do this, because it doesn't hurt anyone.'
~Straits Times/Naked blogger sets Net community abuzz

I know exams are tomorrow, but I really think I want to have tea with Melissa and Serene, the two journalists who wrote the article on SarongPartyGirl (adult material) that appeared in the Straits Times last Saturday. SPG has a nude photo of herself up on her blog, so it's supposed to be a big hooha. As you can see, she has exceeded her bandwidth in two days.

Anyway, I would like to ask them out for tea to enquire how's life, and also ask how come they chose to publish Gabriel Seah's quote, only to censor half of it, and regrettably, the more pertinent half.

What Gabriel (Agagooga, I presume?) really said in his statement to the press was (via SPG's latest post): "The Internet is a free society, there is no reason why anyone should not do this, because it doesn't hurt anyone. A lot of things that used to be considered bad are now acceptable, so maybe we shouldn't be so quick to judge and condemn."

I don't understand it. Is the newspaper afraid of anything? That suddenly everyone would pose nude on the Internets if the second part of the quote was published? (OK, apart from funnyman KennySia (adult material), who actually went ahead and posted a nude picture of himself, much to everyone's delight and chagrin.)

Now, I do realise that word restrictions, column width and length guidelines, and so on that might explain this. But could it be because the second part of Gabriel's quote challenges people to think? And perhaps that is not seen to be too good for public consumption? Art challenges us to think. SPG's blog has depth, her pictures are done well, and her writings also challenge us to think, even if one might agree or disagree with her ideas and attitudes. All things considered, however, the article was still fairly unemotional or judgmental. Sigh, used to be the case that interviews were cut into soundbites. Nowadays, even two sentence soundbites have the potential to become even shorter... LOL

Edit (!): It seems that Malaysia's The Star has shrunk the ST quote by half! (It's now, "The Internet is a free society.") By geometric progression, the next newspaper to pick up the story would print only two words: The Internets.

Edit (!!): Oops, it seems that the Sydney Morning Herald [jefftest, jefftest] has already done that! The quote is missing altogether. Probably the editor thought, "The Internets? I can't run a quote with two words!"

Edit (!!!): More from 医学の学生, mrbrown, serialdeviant, MercerMachine, brandnewmalaysian.

Edit (!V): messrs brown and miyagi have just gone onto NewRadio 938 to talk about the topic currently in the comments section: privacy, nonprivacy and you. Expect a podcast soon.

Edit (V): I take back what I said about the relatively nonjudgmental tone of the newspaper. In a new article published on 18 June, the first line says, "The now infamous Sarong Party Girl has taken down the nude photograph of herself from her weblog - after her parents found out about it." Infamous? Very, very unprofessional word to use in a news article, I reckon.