12 April 2004

Straits Times fails at reporting news, leaves out key Rice 9/11 quote

Condoleeza Rice testified last Friday morning (Singapore time) to the Senate about the 9/11 attacks. Our national newspaper gives her a glowing report on Saturday, despite the fact that her testimony was clearly damaging to the administration. What's unforgivable is ST's reluctance to print the truth, to leave out key information in its reporting.

Rice said, "I don't remember the Al Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about." And that's a quote you'll never see in your newspaper, and it took me under half a week to hunt for the transcripts to the hearings.

(As an aside, you can actually get a transcript of any Senate/Congress debate or speech within a week. How long would you have to wait for Parliament to publish its Gazette? And how easily accessible is the Gazette?)

The Straits Times should realise it IS in our national interests to show that Singapore does not have a monopoly on incompetent civil servants.

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