Cheong Yip Seng is a former editor of The Straits Times. He is a battle-hardened journalist, having risen up the ranks in Singapore's main broadsheet with a staying power that lasted 43 years, 19 of them as the editor-in-chief. His reporting instincts are evident in his book of memoirs, OB Markers: My Straits Times Story, published in 2012, where he describes incidents with dramatic flourish, especially his first taste of Lee's distaste for media practitioners.
Lee Kuan Yew, Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990 had this to say about Cheong and his book:
"Cheong Yip Seng was a most reliable news editor, later Chief Editor of The Straits Times. He spent over four decades with the papers, from British times right up to the present day with it under Singaporean ownership. He has written of Singapore’s travails through merger, then independence, and the obstacles that had to be overcome with independence without a hinterland. He was a witness and reported these challenging and game-changing events and has written vividly on them. It is worth a read."