Myanmar Newsweek was threatened for a legal action by Mynmar model Emerald Nyein after publishing an article that implied she had a sexual relationship with a member of Danish band Michael Learns to Rock.
The Danish band earlier visited Myanmar and performed in Yangon on March 31. After the concert, Danish Michael Learns to Rock singer Mikkel Lentz and his family visited Ngapali and stayed at Amazing Hotels and Resorts on April 2-7.
The Danish singer then took part in an advertising shoot with Mynmar model Emerald Nyein on April 5 for Amazing Hotels and Resorts’ Ngapali property.
Ma Hlaing Hlaing Win, general manager of Amazing Hotels and Resorts confirmed his stay during the period and that the Danish rock star and Emerald Nyein had taken part in the hotel’s advertising shoot.
“When [Mikkel Lentz] came to our hotel, we asked him to take some advertising photos and he accepted. Photos were taken of him with his family and also with Emerald Nyein,” she said.
After the photo shoot, the model posted the photo on her Facebook page, explaining it was an advertisement, but another Facebook user reposted the photo with offensive text, saying she should be ashamed of her behaviour and had damaged the reputation of Myanmar women.
“When I read that post, I was very sad and angry at him (the Facebook user). But a lot of my friends supported me and believed me so I ignored that post. Then Myanmar Newsweek also published that photo and they accused me in that journal,” Emerald Nyein told The Myanmar Times on April 10.
“They didn’t check with me whether it was true or not and they didn’t ask my permission to use my photo from Facebook,” she said
On April 9, Emerald Nyein called the Myanmar Newsweek office but was told there were no editors present. Shortly afterwards, she told Yanae Khit journal she would sue the publication.
Later, an editor from Myanmar Newsweek called and offered to print an apology in their next issue.
Myanmar Newsweek editor Nay Min Theik said the journal would “apologise until [Emerald Nyein] is satisfied”.
“We did not put that news in journal to destroy her image and future. We saw the news on Facebook and just put it in to our journal as a short photo news,” he said.
Following the apology, Emerald Nyein said she would not follow through with earlier threats to file a defamation suit against Myanmar Newsweek.
“If they really apologise like that then I won’t sue them. I asked them to resolve this problem as soon as they can and now I’m watching to see how they go about doing it,” she said.
Emerald Nyein said in the past she had “always” uploaded news and photos about her work to Facebook but this experience has persuaded her to be more selective in future.
“Next time I won’t upload everything. This has taught me I need to be more careful in the future.”
Source: Myanmar Times
Fb is an fantastic social media, but every one should think very careful before posting anything.Myanmar Newsweek has shown a very bad journalistic behaviour because they has not tried to verify the story, are they amateurs?, or are they just tryed to maximize profit.