Far Eastern Economic Review September 19, 2002 THE Straits Times seems to have a sense of humour so long as it doesn't involve Singaporean officials being ribbed. The government-linked newspaper recently ran a New York Times article about the absurd lengths that Washington-based diplomats go to attract attention in the United States and curry favour with the administration and Congress. Those ridiculed included fawning Japanese, Finnish and Italian envoys. But the Singapore daily dropped remarks in the original article about the island republic's own Washington-based diplomats. The New York Times claimed that the Singapore embassy held a send-off reception for Miss District of Columbia before she left for the Miss America contest, "in the name of improving community relations." The Straits Times also omitted a quote from Singapore's ambassador to Washington, Chan Heng Chee, explaining the logic behind the reception: "You never know who is going to be part of the new elite." The newspaper's response: "It was quite a lengthy report and we couldn't accommodate the whole story. So it was just an editorial decision to trim it back," says contributing editor Godfrey Robert. |
||||