Personally, I find the local media coverage extremely egoistic - they focused more on the actions the SAF did, and trumpeted heroic deeds by these people (I am not denying their contributions, or anything), but I feel that the victims of the tsunami are the true heros.
Huh? It's a great tragedy but on the contrary, I don't think the local media have sensationalized anything one bit. The reporters on the ground are just providing first-hand account; I'm sure there's one or two who come across as novice eye-openers (blame it on sheltered lives & mundane news beat) but overall IMO they're doing a great job. Now, deploying a Sumiko Tan or a Janice Wong would've likely make an irritating read - but that's just me ~lol~
Sure, the focus is S'porean but then no local media agency (other than CNA, I suppose) have pretensions about a wider pan-Asian viewpoint - incidentally, that's why the latest Time Magazine was so chauvinistic to me in its photo coverage. More than that, those embedded with the HATF people to Aceh are giving a rare narrative of a large-scale SAF military operation in action.
I think the readers are generally smart enough to keep things in perspective, even as some may become fatigued at the length & depth of the news coverage. Plenty of pointers here & there for mental reorientation, for example:-
- the AWSJ article which the ST reprinted a few days back, which gave a brief but fair summary on what the SAF did in Meuloboh (essentially open up air links, then sea links, then road links to the devastated area, while ferrying relief supplies & personnel).
- another's a Cedric Foo comment, about "everything's being done in crisis mode, at breakneck speed [by us]".
- tracing back, it would appear that the SAF 1st sent the mobilization order down the ranks on 28th Dec: the 1st C130 plane flew out that day, the choppers/medical teams/SCDF personnel would fly out the next 2 days (to 3 countries), & the LST fully loaded a day later.
- SAF activity in Sumatra is concentrated only in Banda Aceh & Meulaboh, with a 3rd city, Medan, another pickup point for RSAF flights flying to those 2 cities.
- a World Food Programme press release stated how 10 days after the tsunami (i.e. Jan 4, the day LHL flew out to get a 1st-hand look), aid was reached to only a
quarter of the survivors, & how transport was still being limited to choppers & hovercrafts given the ground inaccessibility plus the occasional aftershock/monsoon that were causing flash floods & rough weather.
I didn't find it too difficult to digest these bits of reality checks at all.