PETALING JAYA, Oct 8 — American news outlet CNN committed a major gaffe recently by erroneously claiming that Singapore was “not a country” in a Covid-19 data chart.
An article from October 7 that criticised President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic contained a list of key countries that reported less Covid-19 cases than the White House in the past 24 hours.
Besides wrongfully stating that Singapore is “not a country,” the chart also misspelt the name of Papua New Guinea.
Social media users also pointed out that while CNN had gone out of their way to mistakenly declare that Singapore was not a sovereign country, it did not do so for Sint Maarten which is a constituent country of the Netherlands.
CNN just declared Singapore isn't a country nice, thanks CNN
— Lucia ∣ 狩猟者の誇り🌹 (@lucia_hunter) October 7, 2020
Are we also a province of China now https://t.co/VTZ9jj7C4e
3 mistakes on one page, CNN is such an unreliable media. Singapore IS a sovereign country; Papua was spelled as Papau; Sint Maarten is not a sovereign country but a part of Kingdom of Netherlands. https://t.co/XofNsUwisI
— Ashley🇪🇺 (@AshleyvM) October 7, 2020
Eh @CNN, you failed Geography issit? pic.twitter.com/iPwBIM38Cc
— mrbrown (@mrbrown) October 7, 2020
CNN has since removed the data chart from their website and acknowledged the mishap in a note at the bottom of the article where it first appeared.
Singapore has been recognised as a sovereign country following its departure from the Federation of Malaya in 1965.
