Wong Yi Vonn => week 8 - Do you often take what is on the Internet as TRUTH with our thinking much about it? If yes, why? If no, why?

Base on my opinion, news from internet are questionable. But I believe a Chinese proverb: 空穴来风 未必无因, it means that things don't happen for no reason; everything has a cause. Whenever I read something on the Internet, I will not immediately trust it but I'll search for more articles regarding to it to gather more information. And of course, articles found are preferably written by different party so I could get a different perspective and conclude the incident by myself.

This is an example on an article I found and how I conclude it:

http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/169470 , This is a Chinese article about the Bersih Rally incident happen on 9th July, Kuala Lumpur. What caught my interest is that are there water canons and tear gas fired into Tung Shin Hospital? Is there any patients affected on that day?

Below is how I do my research and what I think on the articles.

1) Journal about police shot tear gas into compound area of Tung Shin Hospital

http://live-metzelder.blogspot.com/2011/07/tung-shin-hospital-hit-by-tear-gas.html

This blogspot was talking about tear gas entered Tung Shin Hospital compound.

One of the staff who is in charge of ambulance management, said that the police fired tear gas three times. He added the spray from the water cannons was unable to reach the main hospital, but hit a building in the compound.

There are photos as prove and said that the workers of Tung Shin Hospital was interviewed. It made the whole article believable, but:

1) We can easily fake an interview by writing and without a proof (recording of the entire interview.)

2)Angles of the photo shot could influence the truth, thus photos are also not very believable. But at least this proves that the police did fire some tear gas in that region but tear gas was shot directly into Tung Shin Hospital's compound is questionable.

2) Short video clip about Police denying tear gas was shot at the region of Tung Shin Hospital

Acting police chief Amar Singh denies that tear gas was shot at Tung Shin Hospital Region and by right, what police said was the truth, but:

1) There are videos and photos showing that tear gas was shot in the region. This point increases the doubt of what he will talk about next.

2) He said that he was at the scene that day but when reporters asking about water canons shooting into Tung Shin Hospital, he says " I cant remember now", "I will check and see", "Let's not go into this", And quickly change the subject. The information given by him was very questionable.

3) Short Video clip about did not fire tear gas directly into Tung Shin Hospital but only at the main road infront of Tung Shin Hospital.

In this short clip, Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai said that the police only fired tear gas at the main road of Tung Shin Hospital and not directly into the Hospital. He also mentioned that the management department of Tung Shin Hospital agreed on this point. But:

1) Tung Shin Hospital is a Private Chinese Hospital located in Kuala Lumpur, if Tung Shin Hospital doesn't suffer losses or doesn't causes any impact on the patient in the incident (as written in the blog above: http://live-metzelder.blogspot.com/2011/07/tung-shin-hospital-hit-by-tear-gas.html) Going against the government is a bad move. Thus the denial from management of Tung Shin Hospital was questionable.

2) Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai is working for the government, he does not have the freedom of speaking out his mind. This is a same theory as "journalist vs bloggers" , we can read more detail and different perspective news from a blogger compare to a journalist. Thus, the information given by the Health Minister is questionable.

Therefore, I'll conclude this incident as:

1)Yes, there are tear gas fired around Tung Shin area. But maybe it is windy out there and blew the gas into Tung Shin Hospital, thus both parties are trying to tell the truth. I wouldn't know the truth since I'm not in that scene.

2)Information from police are sometimes questionable and I will not believe them completely starting from now onwards.

3) Watching the denial from the management of Tung Shin Hospital indicates that the patients of the hospital was not being effected and there are no serious damage and loss.