Channel News Asia attributes S'pore Ebola false alarm to Straits Times

Well played.

Belmont Lay| August 14, 06:05 PM

Media rivals Channel News Asia and The Straits Times are having a field day on Aug. 14, 2014.

This was after ST reported that the first suspected Ebola case might have hit Singapore's shores -- and then proceed to retract the article by completely deleting it and replacing it with this article instead.

Latching on to ST's error, CNA in response published an article, "False alarm: Nigerian woman sent to Singapore hospital did not have Ebola", in which they reported:

At 3.45pm, the Straits Times sent a tweet saying that Singapore “may have its first suspected case of Ebola”. The tweet linked to a story which said that the woman, in her 50s, “was identified as a possible Ebola case by doctors at Gleneages on Thursday morning”.

However, at 4.27pm, the Straits Times sent another tweet citing TTSH as saying that she “does not have Ebola as first feared”. The newspaper's original tweet and story have since been deleted.

TTSH Chief Executive Officer Philip Choo was quoted by the Straits Times as saying: "We saw a patient with a history from Nigeria, (but her detailed history revealed) no contact with any suspect or confirmed patients."

This Ebola false positive incident has since been christened "ST's Nigerian scam".

 

Find Mothership.SG on Facebook and Twitter.