Veteran journalist’s unfair criticism of Singapore swimmer draws fire

A Senior Correspondent for The Straits Times, Rohit Brijnath, who took national swimmer Quah Zheng Wen to task for choosing not to speak with the press, has drawn criticisms from netizens – several of them prominent local personalities.

In an article for ST titled, “If athletes want to be understood, they have to talk‘, the writer quoted several sports personalities to suggest that “athletes should draw attention to their sport and their struggle by talking.”

In his article Rohit said: “Talk like the Indian shooter, who was deeply upset and terse at times but told his media that his sight broke before his event. It wasn’t an excuse but just information which gave his day some perspective.” He was referring to the Indian shooter Abhinav Bindra.

Several readers who responded to the article asked the writer to let the sportsmen concentrate on the games they are competing in and not make whiny attacks at such a significant competition.
This is not the first time a publication of the Singapore Press Holdings took our local sportsmen to task for not talking to them. The New Paper called Quah’s character into question because he refused to talk to them (link: https://theindependent.sg.sg/tnp-calls-zheng-wens-character-into-question-because-he-refused-them-an-interview).

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More information about Rohit Brijnath iHERE.

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EDITORS’ NOTE:

Taking several readers feedback into consideration, this article was edited after it was published. We agree that excessive profiling of the ST journalist was unnecessary and that it takes the attention away from the crux of the article  –  which is that newspapermen should avoid making whiny attacks on our sportsmen, especially at such an important competition. We apologise to readers who felt that TISG was leading with selected facts.