keninabu!

Singapore Election coverage

Singapore is one of the few democratic countries in the world that explicitly bans political advertising before elections: no podcasts, no newspaper ads, no radio ads, no TV ads, no internet ads, nothing like the colorful stuff you see on American or Taiwanese TV leading up to their elections.

Basically the only source of news is the main newspapers of Singapore, owned by Singapore Press Holdings, which has on its board a former cabinet member and at least one ex-director of the Internal Security Department of Singapore. Needless to say, while they try to be fair, there is definitely a bias.

Take for example the latest issue of the Straits Times today, which I was able to check online: of 5 MP profiles, 4 of the profiles were the leading People's Action Party members, with only 1 profile of the Opposition MP Mr Low Thia Kiang. Similarly the quotes of candidates had soundbites from 2 PAP candidates vs. 1 Worker's Party (WP) candidate. There are also tons of articles about the PAP's plans and attacks on the opposition. Articles about the PAP have almost no mention of any criticisms by their opponents, but articles about the Opposition party members invariably has a quote or two from any number of senior PAP members criticizing the opposition.

It's not too different from the "balanced news coverage" that the American media gives: essentially they try to "balance" their coverage by juxtaposing a liberal perspective with flat-out-lies from a lot of right-wing extremists. And then there is Fox News, with Bill O'Reilly, who belongs to an entirely different class of extremist altogether. The world of politics is a depressing one for an idealist like me.

posted by keninabu @ 11:28 AM