Netizen spots AsiaOne's article that had praised WP's Jamus Lim was altered to commend PAP’s Vivian Balakrishnan as well

Workers’ Party (WP) candidate Jamus Lim was praised by many netizens over his performance in the inter-party political debate held on Wednesday (1 July), the first of such to be held ahead of the General Election (GE).It was televised over Mediacorp Channel 5 at 7pm last night. After the broadcast, news outlet AsiaOne published an article titled “WP’s Jamus Lim wins over the internet after his performance in GE2020 live debate”.The article was written alongside a series of screenshots that showcased netizens’ comments, praising Dr Lim’s performance and hailing him “as someone who needs to be ushered into Parliament”.The article, however, appeared to have been altered the following day (2 July), and the title was changed to “WP’s Jamus Lim and PAP’s Vivian Balakrishnan win over the internet after their GE2020 debate performances”.The changes made on AsiaOne’s article was first spotted by a Facebook user, David Lim – who happens to be a motivational speaker – and he posted the screenshots of the article on Facebook today.

“This morning an AsiaOne ( a subsidiary of SPH) article heaping praise on Workers' Party's Dr Jamus Lim's performance on last night's televised General Election debate was published.“Hours later it was yanked. Then it was republished just now with a more flattering headline for the ruling party's Minister,” Mr Lim wrote.He claimed that “one tiny” paragraph has been added into the article, which stated, “As for Dr Balakrishnan, the Minister for Foreign Affairs also scored tons of brownie points online for his composure under the keen queries fielded by the opposition".Besides the additional paragraph, AsiaOne also included a number of screenshots which showed the comments penned by netizens, praising Mr Balakrishnan’s performance in the debate.Mr Lim then theorised that the writer of the article may have gotten a “memo from the Government” to give Mr Balakrishnan “some credit”.“It looks like the writer got a memo from the Government to give the poor Minister some credit. It's like they need that extra support so badly. And that's why Singapore's mainstream media tanks on independence and true journalism,” he remarked.