Editors’ notes: You often heard about netizens complaining the local news media are controlled by the Government, I think so too. While reading the 1 May 2011 The Sunday Times today and feeling that the reportings were mainly one sided, I decided to carry out a simple experiment:

Full page reporting on PAP’s view: total 7 (P1,P3,P8,P9,P12,P13,P18)

Full page reporting on Opposition parties combined: total 1 (P15)

Full page covering both PAP and opposition parties: total 5 (P6,P10,P11,P14,P16)

Another experiment I did for the 3 May 2011 The Straits Times turned out similar results:

Full page reporting on PAP’s view: total 9 (P1 half,P10 half,P12,P13,P14,P15,P16,P17,P20,P22)

Full page reporting on Opposition parties combined: total 3 (P18,P19,P21)

Full page covering both PAP and opposition parties: total 1 (P23)

[Updated Aug 2015: Askmelah is seeing the same issue repeating itself all over again in 2015 election, in a typical news reporting, we are seeing more than 15-20min devoted to the PAP propaganda during prime time slots and less than 5min in total for the remaining 6-7 opposition parties. Did somebody say it is FAIR?]

There is one ruling party but more than 5 opposition parties and with such lop-sided reporting, the playing field is very far from level with the media exposure of opposition parties getting less than 5% each on average and when they do, the media tends to paint badly the opposition’s image more than the positive ones. While the relaxation of internet for election campaigning helps in GE2011, you can safely bet that most people are heavily influenced by the mass media.

[Updated 31 Aug 2015] “while candidates are being reminded by the Elections Department to steer clear of negative campaigning and conduct a clean campaign, the mainstream media too should be reminded to stay out of the gutter.” –GE2015: A poison pen letter against WP’s Daniel Goh, but the media looks the worst

 “The press is free to report views that are different to the government but it is not their job to hold the government to account. Your job [as foreign media] is to report facts, not to get involved in Singaporean politics.” – source

Related links:

• Unfair and lop-sided coverage of opposition by mainstream media
• A lop-sided coverage By Seah Chiang Nee
• How PAP is perceived on the Internet …
• Hougang MP-elect defends company track record (see the reader’s comments)
• PROOF: STRAITS TIMES BIAS IN PALMER COVERAGE
• Is SPH biased? Reporting half truths?
• SPH is really bias in reporting the protest
• Making a mockery of the Prime Minister – “By any standards of serious and honest journalism, such a show of support by the public against the head of government would be and indeed is newsworthy – unless you’re a state-controlled apparatus – set-up for no other purpose than to propagate the state’s propaganda and to protect its puppet masters on occasions such as the present one.”