Taxico and PNGMK, I concede that both of you have a point. Certainly the public had a strong reaction to many defaulter cases, and that at least in part led to the Government's stronger stance towards defaulters.
But in my mind, this is also precisely why we need the other side of the story. Because the media usually covers court cases, where the defaulters are likely to be found guilty because it is easy to prove that someone has defaulted, based on Mindef's records. We don't get to hear the defaulters speak - their personal difficulties, their remorse, their willingness to make amends for a genuine mistake, their feelings about being separated from their families etc. The story is already biased against them.
To answer your point, taxico, I think whatever good that will come out of it will depend on what their stories are. Readers might react differently if they think someone defaulted for a selfish reason versus a legitimate one. I don't intend to pass any judgement on that, that's for readers to decide. What I hope is that for once, by featuring their stories, we give them a fair hearing, as the usual coverage already sees them as 'guilty'. My point was that, if there are genuine cases, we can at least change one or two minds that assume all defaulters default for the same reason.
Again, I stress that we will only feature those that understand they are speaking with the media and are willing to do so. I will explain to them what the feature is about, how their story will be told, how they will be quoted etc.