This past Monday, the People's Action Party began to introduce the first batch of their new slate of candidates for the upcoming 2011 elections which will be announced anytime soon. As usual, our mainstream media scribes were out in full force giving extensive coverage to the likes of Desmond Choo, Ong Ye Kung and Janil Puthucheary in their respective publications yesterday. Each of the three candidates were accorded at least a half-page profile article of their own in The Straits Times itself. If I'm not mistaken they were also accorded an article dedicated to each of them in the other language papers.
Rewind back to almost a fortnight ago when the National Solidarity Party came out to introduce five of their new candidates to the media. What did we get the next day in the local scribes? Just a consolidated article saying the NSP introduces first batch of candidates and a photograph featuring all the candidates sitting down during the media conference. Is this fairness? Or have the local scribes just proved once and for all that they are nothing more than a marketing tool for the ruling Government?
Did the PAP pay the Straits Times a token sum for them to profile their new batch of candidates? Already the Straits Times has a reputation for curry favouring the Government, even if they try to deny time and time again. Such actions only increase the population's notion that there is no level playing field in the elections if the opposition do not get their fair share of coverage. Why weren't the NSP candidates given an individual profile article of their own for the electorate to assess?
These kind of one-sided coverage needs to be stopped!!! It's no wonder the Straits Times is not held in high regards in the international media...
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