Ethics and principles

In Singapore it’s not easy to do two things.

1. Speak truth to power
2. Write good news

I’m not here to do 2) since you can read the newspapers for that, and what’s the point of an analysis/opinion blog if you don’t do 1)? Is it even possible? It may be, but let’s find out and hope we don’t offend any powerful decision makers along the way, fake news laws notwithstanding.

Many things have happened in the past couple of weeks that I thought it was high time I set forth a manifesto for myself. To remind myself why I’m here.

Why I write

Interestingly, it’s been just over three years since I decided to start this project.

I initially started this blog because I thought it was valuable to have a more informed, albeit still considerably removed, perspective on land transport. Christopher Tan at the Straits Times knows his craft as a reporter, but sometimes I’m not so sure about the quality of his opinion pieces. Thus, I thought, maybe someone who knows a bit more could comment on the situation better than the macro level which Mr. Tan does.

I’ll move on to something that’s a bit personal. As of the time of writing this post, I am currently studying at SIT, which has a compulsory internship component. Some people said that I should consider one with the Land Transport Authority, which the school has close relations with. I thought about it, and at first I said no. However, with current events having overtaken me, I have since felt that it’s pretty inevitable I find myself pursuing a career in land transport, even though backseat commentating is fun.

That sparked a greater reflection on why I continue to write, and on what I’m trying to do here. Hence this ethics page. Furthermore, it’s not like they don’t know who I am given that I’ve attended their focus groups on the LTMP and other events, so whatever I say here, I’ll have to stand by it. It’s better to have a clear code of conduct in such cases.

The problem here is that even if I do find myself in the rail industry as a career, I don’t want to lose the ability to question; to ask “why are things done in a certain manner?”. As a kid we were all ignorant about things; heck I myself started writing because I was reading about resignalling, just snapped one day, and went “what the heck are they doing?” without understanding the pressures faced by the resignalling project team. Three years later, while I’m now in a better place to understand the intricacies of the rail network, I don’t want to stop asking why.

Maybe it might be a good way to say that what I try to do here is kind of what Bertha Henson is doing, just on infrastructure and transportation policy instead.

What am I trying to go for?

I don’t think I’m ever going to take this as seriously as Nethaniel who bought a drone to document the progress of the Thomson Line construction. FTRL is a fun side project for me, and that’s the way it’s going to remain. Nor am I going to be asking for handouts either. Perhaps I may see if I can finagle a press invite or two like our friends at SGTrains, but I won’t expect that to happen too often.

Why? I think it’s very important to retain a grounded sense of what it means to be a commuter. Sure, it’s probably very easy to complain about people groaning and grumbling about getting the minister to go take the train or something, but it’s a fact. Well, maybe not the minister himself, but other senior management folks would probably do well to primarily take public transport as well.

At the same time, it’s important to find the rationale why they do things. There are things that definitely don’t feel right at first glance, but usually there’s a deeper reason. I try to talk to stakeholders and research material to find out the reasons, and I try to share what I learn here. And even after learning about why, if there’s something that needs improvement, someone has to ask those questions. That’s what I started this blog to do.

Of course, if I do work in the industry, however, there are definitely things that I can not, and will not, be able to say. Getting sued or whacked by fake news laws is also another occupational hazard, but I think I’ll cross those bridges when I get to them, considering that this is a niche publication here.

Respect and responsibility

That one word is very important to me here. When I say “respect”, I mean that I aim to build relationships of trust and respect with the people and organizations that matter.

It probably sounds a lot more difficult than it seems because at first glance, we are after all dealing with an arm of a considerably opaque government that tends to be reluctant to share information. I am not going to say that there are no problems with this.

But I believe change can happen. Even so, that change is most effective when undertaken in a cooperative environment, not spamming Freedom of Information requests and slamming down all sorts of documents with no context whatsoever. Or something like that.

Recall the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

With knowledge about transit comes responsibility — a responsibility to work with the facts as well. That simply means I need to do my research, and my promise to readers is that I will endeavour to do so. Where I am unable to do so and thus must speculate, I will make it clear that such matters will be of my own speculation.

As Socrates said, wisdom is knowing how little we know.

My Code of Conduct

That said, this is what I will do — or as you can say, my red lines:

• I will not write about anything you can’t find yourself — even if it is paywalled and I manage to jump the paywall, you probably can, too.
• I will not seek to actively create trouble (so no irresponsible railfan behavior, especially endangering safety)
• I will respect boundaries that have been set (so no breaking of NDAs I sign, etc)
• I will not allow myself to be overly influenced by external forces (so no monetary gain, no exclusive stuff, etc)
• Anyone who deserves it, will get it. No exceptions, even if I try to be nice.

This will be a living document that I pin to the top of the blog under the “Ethics” link. It will be updated from time to time; and when I do, I will take note of it below.

• 27 July 2020: Initial releases.
• 2nd September 2020: Add CoC point 5, clarify pin, add comment on BH