This morning, former Associate Editor of The Straits Times (ST) Bertha Henson called out her former employers, saying that she “seriously dislike(s) the ST page 1 story”.
Just what are the differences in reports? MustShareNews takes a look.
MSM’s reporting
We scrutinise ST’s articles from yesterday and today for discrepancies in the reporting of the incident.
Yesterday: Informative stub telling readers what hep C is. Information found at bottom of article.
Today: One liner found at the start of the article, describing the hep C virus as “a virus that does not spread easily” and “dies quickly”. This information seemingly makes light of the situation and suggests that the hep C virus is nothing major. Although the virus does indeed die quickly when exposed to air, the severity of the virus when patients are infected was not brought up in the later article.
What hep C actually is: According to World Health Organization (WHO), the hep C virus can cause “both acute and chronic hepatitis infection” that ranges in severity from “a mild illness lasting a few weeks to a serious, lifelong illness”.
Those who are “chronically infected” will also “develop liver cirrhosis or liver cancer”.
Yesterday: Health Minister Gan Kim Yong was quoted as “gravely concerned” and “disappointed with the occurrence of the cluster of hepatitis C cases in SGH”.
Today: Gan Kim Yong was quoted as “deeply concerned” by the infection at SGH, and the part where he said he was disappointed was not mentioned.