FC: William Safire: Bloomberg News cravenly deletes online article

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/29/opinion/29SAFI.html

Bloomberg News Humbled
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON — Let me see if I can write today's column without getting sued. 
It has to do with my old pal Lee Kuan Yew, who prefers to be called "senior 
minister" rather than dictator of Singapore, and whose family members have 
been doing exceedingly well lately.

In kowtowing to the Lee family, the Bloomberg News Service — the feisty, 
aggressive newcomer to coverage of global finance on cable and computers — 
has just demeaned itself and undermined the cause of a free online press.

Early this month, Patrick Smith, a Bloomberg columnist, dared to take note 
of the elevation of Ho Ching, the senior minister's daughter-in-law, to 
head Temesek, the powerful state-owned investment company. Her husband, 
Lee's son, is already deputy prime minister and finance minister, on a fast 
track to the top; Lee's other son is C.E.O. of Singapore Telecom. Lee 
himself, at 78, is chairman of the Government Investment Corporation.

I have not read Smith's story because it has been expunged from the 
Bloomberg Web site, digitally erased from the mind of man. But evidently it 
annoyed some members of Lee's family, who are not known to lose huge libel 
suits that come before local judges.

[...]




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