5 ms·

I'm not sure western media is eager to portray China's doom, but i do think they tend to blow stories out of proportion. On this topic: when a city of 10 milli

I'm not sure western media is eager to portray China's doom, but i do think they tend to blow stories out of proportion. On this topic: when a city of 10 million people has been locked down for 2 months, even with no coronavirus at all they'd be backed up with 10000+ bodies, so it's not surprising to see a bunch of urns. On a more general note, i think western media does tend to run with not particularly well-sourced China stories. That includes both stories like this one that could be interpreted negatively, but it also includes reprinting unvetted party propaganda. The problem is that the CPC does not allow very many western journalists into China, and the ones it does allow it doesn't give the same kind of freedom of movement and freedom to report on things that we have come to expect in the west. So, as a result, the news that makes it out is often fairly flimsy and suggestive rather than heavily researched. This is deliberate - it's how the CPC can keep control of the narrative. As someone who lives here, it's extremely frustrating, because it's impossible to really know what's going on anywhere except right outside my front door. No urns outside my front door, btw.

acqq 7y ago
> I'm not sure western media is eager to portray China's doom Then you definitely don't know how the world functions. There are allocated funds exactly with this purposes. There are the whole groups of people whose main agenda and work description is doing exactly that. But it will be often wrapped in some different wording like "responding to the propaganda" or something, even if the "response" is actual new propaganda being created and then published in the most media.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- voodootrucker 7y ago
  Could you elaborate on who some of these groups are?
  - acqq 7y ago
    There are many aspects of this, and what can be presently proven is always an extremely small tip of the iceberg. I've read a lot of different historical accounts and it is practically a given that all these mechanisms or even institutions and practices which existed up to recently aren't magically dismantled in the present moment. For the start, read about the practice of "embedding" journalists or about: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-... Then consider (if you are old enough) about what the public perception of such coverage was, at the given point of time. Basically, with enough distance in time, we can easily read about the huge distortions, and just shrug and say "yes it was so" but somehow too many people assume that the present moment is somehow, by some magic, "clean." My favorite example is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier "a 2003 briefing document for the British prime minister Tony Blair's Labour Party government. It was issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, and concerned Iraq and weapons of mass destruction." An apparent "proof" turned out to be "plagiarised from various unattributed sources including a 13-year-old thesis produced by a student at California State University." If something that obvious (after the fact) was used as a proof for many nations to go to war, and readily repeated by all the media, what do you expect from the rest of the coverage? I personally remember the coverage from that times, it was considered "patriotic" to not even try to point to the better verified facts. Being surprised about the fact that the direct agendas are behind most of the "news" production is just like being surprised that "there are exactly that much important news in the world per day to fit the front page of the newspaper." Regarding "embedding" I remember reading different articles about the journalists and editors being directly enlisted by some agencies to "independently" provide "patriotic" coverage, even while operating in the mainland, not in some foreign war zones. Maybe somebody saved some such link, I haven't, and Google is not helping me. The current state is not different, to paraphrase James Mickens, even now these players could without problem claim "we are not doing this" while at the same time wearing the t-shirts "we are totally doing this" and... only the first part will be in the titles.
    - alisonatwork 7y ago
saturday14 7y ago
Can't believe official numbers from governments, can't trust journalists to provide accurate accounts (either because of bias or lack of access)... How did we reach here? This just sucks
- mantas 7y ago
  When could you believe numbers from authoritarian governments? We never left that station. Very few governments on global scale can be sort of trusted to not lie too much. Could you, for example, trust Western journalists to provide accurate accounts from USSR? Or believe USSR official numbers?

acqq 7y ago

> I'm not sure western media is eager to portray China's doom Then you definitely don't know how the world functions. There are allocated funds exactly with this purposes. There are the whole groups of people whose main agenda and work description is doing exactly that. But it will be often wrapped in some different wording like "responding to the propaganda" or something, even if the "response" is actual new propaganda being created and then published in the most media.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
voodootrucker 7y ago
Could you elaborate on who some of these groups are?
- acqq 7y ago
  There are many aspects of this, and what can be presently proven is always an extremely small tip of the iceberg. I've read a lot of different historical accounts and it is practically a given that all these mechanisms or even institutions and practices which existed up to recently aren't magically dismantled in the present moment. For the start, read about the practice of "embedding" journalists or about: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda-... Then consider (if you are old enough) about what the public perception of such coverage was, at the given point of time. Basically, with enough distance in time, we can easily read about the huge distortions, and just shrug and say "yes it was so" but somehow too many people assume that the present moment is somehow, by some magic, "clean." My favorite example is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Dossier "a 2003 briefing document for the British prime minister Tony Blair's Labour Party government. It was issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy, and concerned Iraq and weapons of mass destruction." An apparent "proof" turned out to be "plagiarised from various unattributed sources including a 13-year-old thesis produced by a student at California State University." If something that obvious (after the fact) was used as a proof for many nations to go to war, and readily repeated by all the media, what do you expect from the rest of the coverage? I personally remember the coverage from that times, it was considered "patriotic" to not even try to point to the better verified facts. Being surprised about the fact that the direct agendas are behind most of the "news" production is just like being surprised that "there are exactly that much important news in the world per day to fit the front page of the newspaper." Regarding "embedding" I remember reading different articles about the journalists and editors being directly enlisted by some agencies to "independently" provide "patriotic" coverage, even while operating in the mainland, not in some foreign war zones. Maybe somebody saved some such link, I haven't, and Google is not helping me. The current state is not different, to paraphrase James Mickens, even now these players could without problem claim "we are not doing this" while at the same time wearing the t-shirts "we are totally doing this" and... only the first part will be in the titles.
  - alisonatwork 7y ago

saturday14 7y ago

Can't believe official numbers from governments, can't trust journalists to provide accurate accounts (either because of bias or lack of access)... How did we reach here? This just sucks

mantas 7y ago
When could you believe numbers from authoritarian governments? We never left that station. Very few governments on global scale can be sort of trusted to not lie too much. Could you, for example, trust Western journalists to provide accurate accounts from USSR? Or believe USSR official numbers?