Shoddy, skewed reporting from BBC

The BBC is reknowned for its unbiased and objective news coverage. But even the grand 'ole Beebs can be guilty of skewed and erroneous reporting. This article titled "Singapore lifts Sex and City ban" is filled with bias remarks and factual mistakes.

Officials at the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts have censored parts of the first programme.

It is actually the Media Development Authority of Singapore that looks at the programmes. This organisation is like OFCOM in the UK.

Scenes featuring Samantha, played by Kim Catrall, exposing her breasts and using sexually charged expletives have been deleted.

What this piece failed to mention is that, yes, these scenes are deleted. But the same scenes are also deleted to all the feed that goes out to the region. Other countries like Malaysia, which has shown the past seasons of this show, also has the same edits!

Caroline Wong, a spokeswoman at HBO Asia said... "If they say nudity and language have to go, then we will edit accordingly."

The truth is that HBO does their own editing which will then go out to the other countries in Asia. The real reason for the edits is simply that the channel wants to show them to the various Asian countries. The BBC report failed to mention that.

Shame on you, BBC! More reason to read treat news you read skeptically.
 
Update: The BBC piece may be culled from an original piece by Reuters. Regardless, it's shame on these international news agencies for not doing their reporting properly. The report didn't even sought the views from MDA!