Image: The Online Citizen; features ST’s senior editors Marc Lim (left) and Daryl Chin (right).

According to an article by The Online Citizen published earlier today, a Committee of Inquiry found that two senior editors at the Straits Times had breached SPH’s code of conduct by having “improper relations” with an intern in the newsroom.

The article named Marc Lim and Daryl Chin as the ones who had engaged in an alleged affair with the intern.

Responding to TOC’s queries on the matter, an SPH spokesperson stated, “One editor will be removed from his post, demoted and redeployed; the other will be given a written warning, have his salary docked, and redeployed.”

As for the intern, the same TOC article reported that she “purportedly attempted suicide after her boyfriend confronted her on the alleged affair”. At the same time, SPH stated that the company will ensure the intern receives “all medical attention and assistance she needs”, as well as “provide help to her family at this difficult time”.

As far as exposing workplace relationships go, the news itself is alarming.

Yet it was ST’s Editor-in-Chief Warren Fernandez’s public statement that truly displayed ST’s inability to address a sensitive matter with honesty and empathy.

TOC reported that Warren mentioned SPH had “decided that we wouldn’t do an immediate termination … largely because of the good work [Daryl and Marc] had done.”

In the same TOC report and another Yahoo report, Warren also allegedly said that their misconduct had to do with “supervisors using their positions to get into relationships”. According to Yahoo, he had allegedly said this in response to a staff’s query during an SPH town hall meeting held on Wednesday night.

Finally, he added, “We want to make clear that this kind of behaviour is not acceptable in the ST newsroom. Both of them have done good work in the ST newsroom… we will try our best to support them through this difficult period.”

Unfortunately, his statement inadvertently revealed the biggest reason many people seem to have lost trust in the national broadsheet: a glaring lack of objectivity.