Along the same line of amusing reporting, have you noticed the treatment being given to Mumbai “terror attack”? On-the-surface comparison seems to be night-and-day when compared to the “uprising” that occured in Lhasa:
– No scrutiny of why the attacked occured. It’s reported as “terror” rather than “uprising”
– Liber and verbatim reporting of the Indian government’s positions, including that attack of such maganitude must be foreign inspired, when domestic group have claimed responsibility
– Ample showing of victims, property damages, candal light vigil by the citizens
In contrast, my first recollection of seeing chared building, images of shopgirls torched alive in Lhasa was on anti-CNN, not CNN.
wukong says
If Chinese government were to let western journalists in, they would surely go look for sewage in gutters, and they will find plenty. If the government keeps them out as it’s doing right now, then they will publish quotes from Dalai, word by word.
But the bottom line is, the most important audience for Chinese government is domestic Chinese citizens. It matters little what the western media and its readers think of Chinese government today, but it’s changing. Until the day comes when China needs to heed what western media says, Chinese government will shut western journalists out whenever it’s convenient.
facts says
The treatment of China and India in Western media is a very interesting topic.
Reading from Western media, you can never really tell the difference in size of China and India, and readers get the impression, there is some competition between the two. This is of cause what Western media try its best to get across to fan the flame between the two ancient cultures.
Indeed, if anyone dig up the statistics, one would find the huge gap between China and India in almost any category conceivable. There was no mach up between the two, China and India are in different weight classes.
Then the typical Western media comment is always, China is LITTLE ahead of India, NO worries India will catch up in due time, because India has democracy/freedom/human rights/English language/young population/Anglo financial system/etc… whereas China has dictatorship/communism/poverty/up rises/sweat shops/etc… China is doomed, democracy will triumph.
My question is China/India started in late 1940’s. China just emerged from 50yrs of large scale civil wars and Japanese invasion, with no meaningful infrastructure to speak of; India had relative peace for 100 yrs or so with substantial railways and roads built by the British. China was led by independent minded CCP, India inherited the British “democratic” Parliamentary system. 60yrs later, in virtually any category of human development, industrial capability, economic construction, China is way ahead, and the gap is increasing as we speak.
I don’t know why the democracy didn’t work in the first 60 yrs, and how long an average Indian have to wait to see the magic democracy work its wonders? Personally I don’t mind much, because Chinese people are doing better every year, no amount of propaganda can change that. But I just love to see 10yrs later, how Western propaganda would keep it up? I am sure it will. And the Indians will always have the wonder future pie in the sky to look forward to, so tells them the Western free press.
FOARP says
This is insane. You are comparing an incident in which a group of people not exceeding to 10-20 in number attacked high-visibility targets in the centre of a major city with automatic weapons and explosives, and which the foreign media had total access to, to a riot involving thousands of people at the very least, and which started with the arresting of monks who were protesting peacefully. One was clearly a classic terrorist attack, the other was clearly a classic riot – and you, Charlie, are clearly bonkers.
If you want to see a REAL story on media bias showing evidence of potential bias and how it occurs, look here:
http://exiledonline.com/how-to-screw-up-a-war-story-the-new-york-times-at-work/all/1/