Spot the difference

Sometimes, you've just got to do what's right and keep the media on their toes. I got to know from a pal that Free Malaysia Today had come out with a story on Dr Wu Lien-Teh on their news website. As I'm a committee member of the Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society in Penang, it was very natural for me to see what FMT had written about Wu Lien-Teh on their website.

I was very surprised - in fact, pleasantly surprised - that the writer had used one of my pictures from this blog as an illustration for his story. It was a picture of the bust of Wu Lien-Teh which sits today on the grounds of Penang Institute. However, my initial pleasant surprise turned into one of consternation when instead of crediting the picture to me, the caption only acknowledged it as a "blogspot pic" meaning that the writer and, inter alia, FMT was only crediting the picture to blogspot and not me. Obviously, they knew enough to pick the picture up from my blog as it does not appear anywhere else on the Internet. For whatever reason though, the writer thought he could get away with not crediting me.

The more I thought about it, the more indignant I was getting. Here was a respectable digital news media but they had no scruples about not giving credit to the source of their picture. So I decided to drop them a little note of complaint, couched in a little conciliatory tone.

"Dear FMT," I wrote, "you just cannot lift a picture from my blog, https://ssquah.blogspot.com/2019/11/jalan-dr-wu-lien-teh.html, without attributing it to me. I took that picture and the copyright is mine. However, I am agreeable to let you use this picture if you credit it to me. I am referring to the picture of the bust of Dr Wu Lien Teh on the grounds of Penang Institute. Please do the right thing!"

To their credit, a reply was received first thing this morning from their Lifestyle editor.

"Good morning Quah Seng Sun, Thank you for your email regarding the copyright of the photograph of the bust of Dr Wu Lien Teh on the grounds of Penang Institute. We apologise for the oversight on our part and have given due credit to your goodself for the photograph. Here is the link to the updated version of the story : https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2020/04/20/dr-wu-lien-teh-malayas-nobel-prize-nominee-and-n95-mask-inventor/ Once again, our apologies."