A U.S. or U.S.-backed attack on Iran seems to be a foregone conclusion if we simply look at how the U.S. media covers the issue. FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) recently had this to report while looking at U.S. media, “Do TV Networks ‘Practice’ for War?”
02/13/2012 by Peter Hart
Alexander Cockburn’s latest piece at CounterPunch (2/10/12) included this from a tipster:
I was visiting ABC News the other day to see a friend who works on graphics. When I went to his room, he showed me all the graphics he was making in anticipation of the Israeli attack on Iran; not just maps, but flight patterns, trajectories and 3-D models of U.S. aircraft carrier fleets. Read more…
Well, at least indirectly. Google in its exit from the Chinese market for search tried to bolster it’s “do no evil” motto by trying to demonize China’s censorship laws. We have written quite a bit about Google in the past – some directly and others indirectly (see our other ’Google‘-tagged articles). In this article, I would like to simply show how Google participates (willfully or not makes no difference) in this one-sided mass barrage of attacks in the Western press against Syria. Read more…
The Economist is often held prisoner by its own prejudice arising from its whatever-China-does-internationally-is-wrong stance, and a recent article on the South China Sea disputes proves it. Behold the latest offering from intellectual dungeons of the The Economist: “The devil in the deep blue detail”.
Sadly, but not surprisingly, the newspaper warns against the dangers of viewing the dispute through cold war lenses, and then proceeds to do exactly that. In a nutshell, the article can be summed up as follows: China is the bad guy. (Of course, that applies to mostarticlesabout China that it publishes).
The Economist recently announced a dedicated weekly section on China. It said, China is the second country for them to have done this for, followed only by their singling out the United States since 1942. In my view, the extra attention they give to ‘China’ as a topic is hardly going to help Westerners’ understanding of China. Their editorial staff really needs an overhaul, as one of their reader observes:
You need an editor and staff with some personal background in China (and I don’t mean expats with Chinese spouses). You need better academic resources. And somehow you must all learn that western values are not universal values, and that all cultures are internally legitimate yet benefit from external contact. To fail in this regard will simply amplify existing cultural misunderstandings and cripple the great impending social and political globalizations that must follow the economic one already in progress.
The Economist’s coverage of China is bigoted, as exemplified by their debut article – which I am rebutting in this post (my rebuttal on the right). If The Economist is genuinely interested in improving China for the Chinese, they’d be able to discuss the issues and policies specifically – not a wholesale rejection of the China ‘model.’ Read more…
‘So solidly built into our consciousness is the concept that China is conducting a rapacious and belligerent foreign policy, that whenever a dispute arises in which China is involved, she is instantly assumed to have provoked it.’
— Felix Greene, 1965.
When a superpower is engaging in full hegemonic and supercilious display, another country with slowly increasing economic clout and rising international status can raise apprehension. When countries are used to a bigger country that is settled for some years in a bullying position, someone starting to come close to that bully’s level of power, however remotely, has the potential to raise various concerns.
This rise is often wrongly construed as a zero-sum game – the newcomer challenging the bully’s position. In such a case, the existing bully, in its efforts to manipulate popular conceptions about the comparatively-unknown newcomer, will (hypocritically) spread the myth that the newcomer is, and always has been, overtly aggressive. If this myth-making and spreading is successful, even to a small extent, it can negate the effect that the newcomer might have in compensating for or balancing the bully’s hegemony and its hubris. The newcomer’s assurances about its peaceful rise will then be dismissed as deception. The focal point of the bully’s containment policy will be to encourage and manipulate various types of pawns against the newcomer. If such pawns already exist, then they will be fostered and strengthened, and in case they don’t, new ones will be created (Or as Stephen Walt terms it, “a competition for allies”).
I plan to blog about this general issue sometime soon. Right now however, I just can’t help commenting on just two points for the time being, particularly because many westerners have humongous misconceptions about these issues. Almost every article on the topic contains at least a reference to these two fallacious points.
The TED interview below (video at the end of the post) was conducted in July 2010 with Julian Assange talking about the need for the public to keep an eye out for government conduct. Americans cherish freedom of the press, and by that, it is generally understood that the media’s job is to be the watchdog of the government and any other organization of power.
Do Americans have freedom of the press? I don’t think so. Or definitely not in function as how Americans understand their purpose to be. Assange is about to release a new documentary film criticizing the Western media. Referring to the New York Times, he said: Read more…
This time the NYT reporter, Andrew Jacobs, lies about a Chinese journalist being detained by Chinese police. How do we know? In fact, the journalist has come out to say that he wasn’t and that the NYT didn’t even interview him. Below is the NYT article and I show what a propaganda garbage it is. Read on. Read more…
What is a bottom-feeder? It usually refers to some fish swimming and feeding at the bottom of a lake or river. Just imagine what generally falls to the bottom. This is what I think of whenever the Western press engages in putting the most fringe unto a pedestal and worships it.
Recently, Newsweek published an essay by Ai Weiwei titled, “The City: Beijing” with the byline, “Ai Weiwei finds China’s capital is a prison where people go mad.” Needless to say, this byline is stupid and so is the essay. I will get into that momentarily. Read more…
Lecturing others amounts to schadenfreude. Wait. What?
An interesting phenomenon seems to be in the air. With the current financial crisis in America and unrest in Britain, it appears that multiple western media outlets cannot resist the temptation to interpret China’s and other countries’ responses in terms of “schadenfreude“. Although not as amusing as accusing the politburo of smoking weed, it certainly has all the qualities that characterize the distinct flavours of garrulous western reporting about China and Asia in general.
In response to the crises in Washington, Xinhua, in a much cited phrase (One that the international media has gone completely gaga over), called upon the US to “cure its addiction to debt” . This was interpreted by The Economist as schadenfreude, claiming that “regional celebrations” have erupted in Asia over the debt crisis. Read more…
BEIJING (AFP) — China’s Premier Wen Jiabao on Monday pledged 353.2 million yuan ($55.3 million) in food aid to African countries suffering their worst drought in years.
After first reading this article from the Associated Press (echoed by the NPR), I thought, well, it seems to be all facts based. Over the years, I have come to realize critical thinking is required when consuming Western press. Read the left column through first before reading my comments on the right. Try to ignore my highlighting. Let me know if you think I am being too critical. Did my points of contention jump out at you during your initial reading? Read more…
During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Chinese people complained too. You would just need to be able to read Chinese to see it. Doing so didn’t land them in jail as this Brit (I presume) claims in this piece, “London Games will outdo Beijing because of freedom.” Breaking Chinese law does. In referring to the 2012 London Olympics, and apparently feeling inadequate, this retarded journalist says:
But these will still be better Olympics — in some ways, they already are — because London has the key ingredient that Beijing sorely lacked to host truly soul-searing games: freedom.
Let’s not forget. U.K. is bombing Libya to “protect Libyans.” This author apparently have no idea what freedom from bombs mean. I truly wish for a successful London 2012. Using ‘freedom’ to fill your feelings of inadequacy? It’s like saying my penis doesn’t work, but I have a convertible made in the heavens. And, by the way, that heavenly convertible has a habit of running over people.
[Update: Please see Wukailong remarks in the comments section. He is correct, and my fault for lumping Norwegian media into this supposed 'Western' media madness on this particular issue. To their credit, they are reporting the Oslo shooting and bombing as 'terrorist' acts.]
In looking at the New York Times coverage of the Oslo bombing and shooting, Glenn Greenwald sees ongoing pattern of attributing terrorism only to Muslims and not acts committed by the White. As I have written here about a year ago – “Harvard University study catches major U.S. media pants down – systematic reporting of U.S. waterboarding as not torture,” this sort of behavior is nothing new. Some may argue there is no conspiracy by the Western media for this sort of thing. Probably not. I often like to ask back – do racists need to conspire to commit racism? I don’t think so. Their public display emboldens each other for sure. Greenwald’s analysis below: Read more…
Lately, we have focused on propaganda in the Western media. Reader cp made (what I think) are very measured and accurate characterizations of what is happening around us. It is short and to the point, and I simply want to highlight it. As many here have argued in the past, these type of issues need to be discussed in the public. Comedians bring awareness to social issues through satire. Mark Twain challenge prevailing racist attitudes through his novel, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Though this blog may sound ‘serious,’ we feel it is critically important for everyone to wake up and recognize the nature of Western capitalistic media. This is not about choosing sides. Rather, it is about not letting ourselves to be further polarized. Read more…
The Dalai Lama recently met with U.S. President Obama and news of it made headlines both in China and in the West. I want to first address this point made by some that China shouldn’t make a big deal out of this meeting, because after all, China recently met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and the U.S. made no objections. That is a faulty comparison, because the Dalai Lama is likely visiting the U.S. to secure his annual funding for the TGIE, and in contrast, al-Bashir is not trying to split off any portion of the U.S.. Read more…
I have recently posted a number of side-by-side comparisons showing how propagandistic articles (here and here) look like in the U.S. media. These are not mere instances, as I have shown here, based on a study by the PEW Research Center for Excellence in Journalism which systematically looked at coverage of China in the last few years and concluded only few topics dominated in the U.S. media and with negativity. I discussed how horribly those topics were reported with bias and distortion; and yes, I used the word ‘propaganda’ to describe.
“It’s important to remember that it’s not the media’s job to help people understand China, it’s their job to REPORT THE NEWS.”
perspectivehere left a couple of very insightful responses which I have decided to highlight and include below. (Some formatting for better readability and highlighting of perspectivehere’s concluding remarks are done by me.) Read more…
Russia Today interviews Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a researcher at Center for Research for Globalization, about the illegal arming of Libyan rebels. Nazemroaya also tells first hand account of Reuters reporter lying about meeting rebel leaders to give false impression of support by the population in Tripoli.
In January 24, 2011, Pew Research Center’s Project on Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) released a report (“THE U.S. MEDIA ON CHINA“) analyzing U.S. media coverage of China in the last few years, an ongoing effort started since 1997. The report asked, “When China has made news, what is it Americans are learning about?” That question was precisely answered.
In this post, I will take it further and share with you how the U.S. media narratives were as consumed by the American public. I will then share with you whether those narratives are truthful. In fact, as you will see in the PEJ report, the U.S. media reporting of China really vacillates around few dominant and recurring negative themes. And, they are not so truthful; definitely not objective.
There is however one exception, and in writing this post, I feel saddened because the topic I feel the narrative is finally correct is one of great tragedy. Read more…
Chris Wallace of Fox News hosted Jon Stewart in a pretty interesting exchange about the state of media in the U.S.. Stewart is a long time critic of Fox News; not as much for the sensationalism, misinformation, and leanings towards conflict which he finds in America’s mass media, but the ‘partisanship’ he thinks Fox News partakes in. It’s a 24 minute video and I highly recommend viewing in its entirety. In my view, the ENTIRE American media is in ‘partisanship’ against the world. The media is worthwhile examining, and I invite you to share your thoughts.
I highly recommend heading over to the Shanghai Scrap blog where American writer Adam Minter interviews his friend, Mara Hvistendahl, who has just published the book, “Unnatural Selection: Missing Girls, Abortion, and the Perversion of Choice.” To give you an idea of the conversation, I have excerpted a question below. You might want the book too.
Scrap: Focusing on China – it’s almost accepted gospel, for those not familiar with the issue, that infanticide, the one-child policy, and abandonment account for the country’s skewed sex ratio, and that abortion is only part of the mix. Yet you not only object to that formulation, you seem to imply that it’s both condescending and a gross distortion that obscures the real issues. Could you give a sense of how important each of those facts is, in fact, to China’s gender issues, and why they are only a small part of the overall picture?
Students learning to become hairdressers at Lanxiang Vocational School in Jinan
Google has been up to making empty allegations against China since it decided to withdraw last year. In its latest salvo, it accused the Chinese government of a phishing attack on Gmail accounts. As predicted, such allegations are spreading like wild fire in the Western media. In fact, the innuendos are narrated into facts, and it is always amazing to see how this propaganda machinery works.
It claimed the phishing attacks “appears to originate from Jinan, China.” The Lanxiang Vocations School which was at the center of Google’s last year claim of Gmail attacks is also in Jinan. Apparently, the hairdressing students at Lanxiang no longer find this spotlight funny.
Did Google offer any more facts than last time? No. But, seriously, let’s look at some real ones. In this respected business and venture capital journal, Venture Beat, Matt Marshall tells us: Read more…
Ai Weiwei appeared in Western headlines again after Xinhua reported Beijing police saying he was under ‘house surveillance’ and under investigation for tax evasion. (I should mention that while searching for materials for this post, I was struck by the lack of search results on Google on ‘Ai Weiwei’ from China. Why? I would venture to say, therein lies the true essence of Google’s struggles in China in search; but we have already made this argument in the past.)
Anyways, the Western media all seems to be colluding in characterizing the ‘house surveillance’ as simply Ai Weiwei went ‘missing,’ in the sense that the Chinese government is a irrational kidnapping criminal. By the way, the Chinese people have picked up on this behavior of the West (in Chinese here). Why spare no effort in understanding Chinese law and explain legal procedures behind this detention? In this post, I’d like to share key passages from China’s Criminal Procedure Law governing this ‘house surveillance’ as well an Op-Ed from China Daily writer, Mo Nong, called, “Ideological bias clouds Western views.” Read more…
I think the dominant attitude you’re hearing from the Chinese is basically, if it works for you, great… but we might prefer a different path, especially if it works for us.
If you understand that our values and the view they engender might be different… why do you insist on forcing your values and single view on us? Why do you insist that we must eventually follow in your path, if we tell you with all seriousness, that we’re not sure we want to? (Buxi)
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