[Update October 11, 2011 for reasons here and here: There are some in] the English language ‘China’ blogosphere having a cow over a recent China Daily editorial by CHEN Weihua criticizing the U.S. media for lack of coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Chen is correct in pointing out this phenomenon. I find it ridiculous these bloggers are criticizing Chen while ‘prominent’ Americans all over have been saying the same thing! A reader at the WSJ summarized it the best:
11:43 am October 8, 2011
Rousseau Newport wrote:
Read New York Times online today, for the first time it ran five, if not seven op-ed, on Occupy Wall St. This is because Obama nodded his head last night People like Paul Krugman and Princeton professor Anne Marie Salughter have also mentioned media blackout, so is MSNBC former anchor Keith Olbermann, and FT columnist Martin Wolf…. We can spend another time talking about China. Yes. The problem is serious. But do you mean because there is problem in China, and Chinese therefore have no right to point out the problem in the US. This Wall Street Journal writer is totally ignorant. Do you think the media covered it well? Do you study? The China Daily story is published Sep.30, how many stories there are in the Times and Journal or the Post, check it out, not even three, NPR did not have one in the first nine days, according to Paul Krugman….
Here is another take by Russia Today. The protesters themselves say too they are being ignored. Certainly, the U.S. media are paying more attention to this movement in recent days. Despite more attention, there is definitely a lack of zeal compared to protests in foreign countries.
As I have said here, my opinion is that the Occupy Wall Street movement will eventually fizz. And that has a lot to do with the U.S. media’s position on it.
Chris Devonshire-Ellis says
Well, what do you expect from bloggers? Many of them are sanctimonious, two faced, and biased. It’s NOT a story we are running on China Briefing, we’ve better things to discuss, such as the impact of the new social welfare law, the importance of transliterations when converting documents from English to Chinese, understanding China’s development zones and the latest China legal and regulatory updates. http://www.china-briefing.com/news
You choose your online media, you takes your choice.
xian says
It’s because big media is run from Wall Street. Remember the fiasco with Murdoch? The NYT was practically mute on that. On the other hand I did see it on the top sidebar all day on CNN (it’s gone now though), and HuffPo is unsurprisingly running it 24/7, so blackout may be a bit of an exaggeration.
pug_ster says
Looks like US propaganda can’t take criticism too well.
YinYang says
In Chen’s Op-Ed in China Daily he didn’t say anything about ‘blackout’ or of that sort. This is what he wrote:
xian says
Well I tend to think of blackout as meaning totally censored (like an electrical blackout), but we can have different definitions.
Either way, if they employed the same level of hysteria they did with the Jasmine “revolution” this would be the biggest media storm of the year, complete with parallels to the Arab Spring and omens of regime change. That would be pretty stupid, but apparently those standards don’t apply when it comes to reporting on China.
YinYang says
@xian
Not disagreeing with you. Totally agreed on the double-standards take.
The issue behind this ‘blackout’ is WSJ and others wrongly criticizing CHEN claiming him saying there is a ‘blackout.’ That is not what he wrote and also, the U.S. media basically were ignoring the protests for the first two weeks. His article was dated Sept 30th.
raventhorn2000 says
@YinYang
Yep, they are having a cow, while still trying to ignore what’s going on on Wall Street and DC, Chicago, Seattle, etc.
Well, I guess some “Democracy” “Free Media” needs “face” more than some governments! 🙂
Ray says
@raventhorn2000
It is actually fair comparison the June 4th event, after the crowd ballooned into tens of thousands the Chinese government actually invited the student leaders who are having hunger strike in to have a talk. However, it didn’t solve anything. Another contrast is that instead of police brutality against the protesters, in China’s case, it is the protesters who initially committed brutality by shoving and pushing the troops around. The biggest mistake of the Chinese government is allowing the protesters to occupy certain public places like the square or road and create a near anarchy environment. The US government never allowed this situation to happen. The big corporations in Wall Street still function like it used too, and the White House and Capitol Hill still convenes. Wheres in China’s case the business and government offices have almost broken down and lawlessness have occurred.
Unfortunately, Deng used too extreme a method to eventually dispersed the protesters after 44 days. The US government should have the hind sight and I do not foresee extreme violence but their initial approach even compared to the CCP is simply pathetic. Granted the CCP initial press release in May 1989 also smacked of ignorance and official arrogance which stroke the protest(another serious PR mistake).
In my opinion as long as the Wall Street protesters retained their non-violence stance and received certain public support it could continue until either the government or Wall Street (highly unlikely since it consists of too many entities) made at least a symbolic gesture or concession. The cause of the Arab spring, TAM, and now this movement is actually very similar, in that a large numbers of youth are discontent with their social, economic and political situation. I would say the US is luckier in that despite the economic woes, the protesters are relative well off compared to the rest of the world and would not use extreme methods. On top of that, the movement would not receive any outside encouragement or support.
raventhorn2000 says
@Ray
Totally fair comparison. I agree.
The Chinese government waited for over a month to let the students do their gathering and music concerts.
AND they even allowed media to report the gathering.
I remember watching the coverage.
melektaus says
They should call this the “American Spring” or American Jasmin Revolution. Nevermind, that doesn’t sound promising. Maybe the Coffee Revolution. We need some good names. Names can be a powerful thing in the media.
raventhorn2000 says
@melektaus
How about “Chapter 11 Revolution”?
Referring to the Chapter 11 Bankruptcy code for business entities.
raventhorn2000 says
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSn-IgwQAGY&feature=related
Keith Olbermann reported that Yahoo had “Spam filtered” OccupyWallStreet.org.
Hmm…. A “Patriot Pig-Pen”??!!
richard says
http://bit.ly/pSjiQC
The media only covered it when it hit critical mass, as always. Same with the Tea Party, originally seen as a bunch of kooks by all but Fox News. Once it grew, it got non-stop coverage, just like Occupy Wall Street is getting now, with big front-page splashes everywhere you look. Everywhere. Big, big story. Lots of editorials and opinion pieces, too. Just look around. The notion that the media has ignored this is simply false. The only ones who say this are some bloggers who complain about everything the mass media does. Don’t argue unless you go to the link above.
raventhorn2000 says
“The only ones who say this are some bloggers who complain about everything the mass media does. Don’t argue unless you go to the link above.
Keith Olbermann (more than “some bloggers”) complained about it too. (Of course, he himself didn’t cover the protest much either).
“Don’t argue unless you go to the link above.”
Ditto. I gave the link to Keith’s TV segment.
YinYang says
@richard
You missed the point completely.
1. The U.S. media generally ignored the Occupy Wall Street protests for the first two weeks. That was the criticism from China Daily’s Op-Ed and the Russia Today segment.
This post is about lame bloggers defending the U.S. media for that time period.
2. Contrast the action of the U.S. media in their zealous pursuit of Jasmine protest stories in the Wangfujing McDonalds, is tell tale for what the U.S. media stands for.
Now, regarding the U.S. media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement recently. I do not disagree. The U.S. media is finally paying attention to it.
richard says
This post is about lame bloggers defending the U.S. media for that time period.
This may be, with all due respect, your weakest post ever. You point to ONE blogger, and make the audacious statement, “The English language ‘China’ blogosphere are having a cow over a recent China Daily editorial…” And it’s not even a part of the “blogosphere” — it’s a professional journalist with the Wall Street Journal who keeps a WSJ blog! Who are the “lame bloggers?” So tell us: Who are these “lame bloggers,” who are the members of the American blogosphere who went gaga over this editorial? Just one guy from the WSJ?
Raven, I agree with Keith Olbermann, it took too long for the media to cover this story — by about two days. This is typical and happened with the Tea Party as well, as I mentioned. Some on the right were fuming that the establishment media was ignoring the Tea Party, which at first was covered only by Fox. In both cases, the media then plunged into the story, and now OWS is the No. 1 story in America. The Jasmine Revolution got coverage because it reached critical mass fast — it was only covered when thousands of people participated, just like Occupy Wall Street, The difference is, with the JR thousands of people poured in from the very beginning after the self-immolation in Tunisia. In Occupy Wall street, there were at first only a few hundred demonstrators. Ironically, after the police pepper-sprayed them the world took notice and it reached critical mass. Within days thousands were joining in.
In all honesty, I maintain the only one having a cow over the China Daily column is you. And I actually read the post — what part of it do you believe indicates he’s “having a cow”? What sentence or graf can you cite to back up your claim? It reads like mighty tame stuff to me. And this whole post, about one boring blog post, which you say the “American blogosphere” has gone gaga over. One blog post. I urge everyone to read the piece and tell me where the reporter is “having a cow.”
I am eagerly awaiting yinyang’s list of “gaga” American bloggers writing about the China Daily column. Just name 10 of these bloggers. No, name 5. No, just name 3. No, name anyone except that one WSJ blogger-journalist who “went gaga”about it. Start googling fast. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
YinYang says
The WSJ has a blog dedicated to ‘China’ and ‘professional journalist’ writing on it is not called a blogger? Are you kidding me?
Start time: Oct 11, 2011 9:20pm PST
http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/10/06/16068/
Now my computer says 9:25pm. Fast enough for you? Btw, where did this ‘American’ come from? In case you can’t read, the OP says English language.
YinYang says
You know, what, Richard, I’ll agree with you for once. There really aren’t that many English language ‘China’ bloggers having a cow over the CHEN Weihua Op-Ed. I’ve updated my my post to reflect.
richard says
Thanks yinyang, that’s classy of you.
Allen says
@richard
Actually, you bring up an interesting point. When we point to “facts” – how much facts must we divulge. I know I read lots of blogs and professional articles from English sources pointing to one or a couple of unhappy Chinese (pick whatever issues you want: environment, religion, corruption, etc.) – and then interpolating that to mean that the whole CCP way of governance is corrupt.
Should we hold everyone to a standard of divulging not just one – or two – or even three source to backup any generalization about anything? Must we disclose a scientifically and mathematically robust statistically relevant number of data points to make any assertion?
If we go by that standard (and I may not have a problem if we are all consistent about that standard), then few of us can say anything, really… I mean every one of our life experiences is limited – even the most traveled, educated, and thoughtful of us.
In the end, I think it would have been nice of you to point out that perhaps this one blogger doesn’t represent your understanding of what is happening in the heliosphere and make your point. But to point blank attack yinyang as you did – well I can turn that around and do that any number of posts you or I have written.
raventhorn2000 says
@Allen
I concur. I like see Richard define his standard for “weak” and “strong”.
*On the other hand, Maybe Richard has a point.
Maybe that was just 1 nut job Western blogger, and other Western blogs all AGREE with the China Daily Editorial, (or at least are completely SILENT on the subject, which also somewhat proves China Daily Editorial)! 🙂
Jim says
China now restricts reporting on OWS.
Ray says
@Jim
I feel sorry for you. The first thing you should do is go to Chinese news outlet to verify whether it is true. On average Chinese news portals have more comprehensive international coverage than the average western news portals.
Update on OWS
http://www.chinanews.com/gj/2011/10-24/3408120.shtml
On Europe
http://www.chinanews.com/gj/2011/10-23/3407672.shtml
Jim says
@Ray
Ray, if you were to read the article to which I linked, you would know that it points out that Chinese media still make available reports on OWS; the FT article also discusses how the CCP has recently placed restrictions on this reporting. For example, here is a list of terms that have been banned on Weibo.cn — I tested several of the terms, and Weibo returned no results, although there are many results for the English phrase, “Occupy Wall Street.”
Ray says
@Jim
Spare me the ignorance, the people of China knows what’s going on both within China and the world. It is you that you have no clue how China and the world looks.
I have stated repeatedly here that the Chinese governtment took the most effective steps in tackling the economic crisis. I am not at all surprise by the OWS and the soverign debt crisis in part of Europe.
Tell me, why didn’t FT, Forbes, CNN predicted the OWS movement while they kept reiterating a Chinese spring will happened. You are still doing now.
YinYang says
China is proactive in not giving the agitators any excuse to occupy Chinese cities. For some they are troubled by such moves. The world flipped on them.