Last weekend’s F1 race in Singapore saw a dramatic crash which took out the Ferrari team. Lewis Hamilton who started in 5th position, roared past other drivers to take podium while racing in the 1st wet night race in F1 history.
After the race, a British couple got onto the track and took selfies. Usually that would not bring any notice, except this F1 fan had to broadcast his enthusiasm on the Internet and of all, insisted he had bribed the security guard to get onto the track.
Bribe. The 5 letter word. BRIBE.
Probably lost his mind when he said the ‘Bribe’ word in the context of a high security sporting event.
Apart from these controversies, I read on the local online papers and saw this report (76% of Singaporeans positive towards new F1 deal)
An excerpt of the article as follows:
“A report by global media intelligence firm Meltwater — which tracked online reactions in the lead-up to and during the race weekend — showed that 76 per cent of Singaporeans had reacted positively to news of the deal, which was announced by Formula One, Singapore Tourism Board and race promoter Singapore GP last Friday (Sept 15).”
Keywords noted here. tracked online reactions, the lead-up, during the race weekend, 76 per cent of Singaporeans had reacted positively to news of the deal.
- Only online reactions (Likes, Twits, Mentions, etc) were tracked.
- 76 percent of Singaporeans reacted positively to news of the deal
For the uninitiated, the F1 deal was renewed before race day. The last renewal was a standard 5 year contract but this renewal was one year less than the standard.
Remains to be seen whether was the positive reaction attributable to the renewal of the the contract, or one year less of suffering to be experienced by 76% of Singaporeans.
Lastly, the misleading title by TodayOnline shows how Journalism in Singapore has gone to the dumbs.
By skimming the headlines and not reading into the lines, anyone could be have mistaken that 76% of ALL SINGAPOREANS agree to have the F1 race renewed. Let’s run some numbers here.
Statistics showing the estimated number of Singaporeans online, we get 4,699,204 (estimated) online users. Using these numbers, 76% react favourable to F1 race. This gives 3,571,396.
With the mid year estimates from Statistics Singapore, the total population in Singapore is 5,607,300. This gives 63.6% which is more than 10% difference from that headline number.
But the foot note in the statistics indicate “Total population comprises Singapore residents and non-residents. The resident population comprises Singapore citizens and permanent residents.”
So let’s look at the resident population only – 3,933,600. Doing the calculations gives an estimated 90.7%. 90.7% on the Singapore online population approved the F1 race? Even if the the calculations from the “global media intelligence firm Meltwater” is off, its more than 10% off from the reported numbers.
This begs the question. Are the numbers provided by “global media intelligence firm Meltwater” correct? If they aren’t correct, why are this ‘news’ being reported?
One last thing – Counting 4 years, the next contract review will be up in 2021. Ahh, another big event coming up there. Care to take a guess?