by: Ravi Philemon/
I was watching Channel NewsAsia’s (CNA) ‘AM Live!’ and was quite disturbed that CNA kept associating Presidential candidate Tan Jee Say with Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).
Even their written report says, “former Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) member Mr Tan Jee Say…was issued the Certificate of Eligibility for his presidential bid”.
Yes it is a fact that he was SDP’s candidate in the last General Election, but in a report to highlight why the PEC decided to give him the Certificate of Eligibility, isn’t it more appropriate to highlight the fact that he qualified for the COE because he was the former Regional Manager of AIB Govett Asia?
The fact that he spent five years as the Prinicpal Private Secretary to former-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was also completely left out in the video segment (although it is there in the written report).
What we find instead in a clip meant to introduce Mr Tan Jee Say is him being featured seating with Mr Chee Soon Juan in SDP’s colours.
Why choose this clip when there are other clips in CNA’s archives of Mr Tan’s interviews with the network since he announced his intentions to run for the Presidential Election (see HERE)?
Is this portrayal of Mr Tan to colour him in SDP purposeful, because (in Cherian George’s words) SDP is perceived in some quarters as “a destructive force…Chee has repeatedly broken the law in order to win for himself the attention of foreign human rights groups; that he has run down Singapore in international fora; and that his methods are rejected even by other Opposition leaders”?
So the logic behind this being ‘if the people have rejected SDP and Dr Chee Soon Juan, they will reject Tan Jee Say by way of association too’.
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