5 ms·

I suspect it was an error on the part of a programming director at the network, and that it will probably cost them their job. To my knowledge, China hasn't ta

I suspect it was an error on the part of a programming director at the network, and that it will probably cost them their job. To my knowledge, China hasn't taken any steps towards freedom of speech and this would be a pretty weird way for them to start.

toyg 14y ago
TFA mentions that "Xi Jinping assumed office as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China on November 15th and he may have brought a more liberal attitude with him"... Time will tell, I guess.
- veemjeem 14y ago
  Somehow I doubt this. Only a few days ago when the news of school shooting broke out, China had a similar incident a day later where a man stabbed/injured 22 children. However, that story was quickly snuffed and the only place you could find out about it was on China's twitter (weibo). I doubt one man could easily hand over the reigns of the media.
  - steve19 14y ago
    How do you know it actually happened and that it was not just a false rumor spread on social media?
    - veemjeem 14y ago
      At least in China, the "people" network is usually more trustworthy than the major media outlets. I can understand from the western perspective that we should be doubting social media first. People were posting pictures of the injured children. It's possible that the photos were doctored, but I doubt anyone would go to great lengths doing it. Also, when you stab 22 children, I'm sure it will be big local news at least...
      - TeMPOraL 14y ago
        > I can understand from the western perspective that we should be doubting social media first. Should we? I have never seen a situation where social media were any less than an order or two of magnitude more trustworthy than traditional outlets.
        robbiep 14y ago
        Really? (with regard to in the west) Most of the social network 'news' I see is total crap. The stuff of chain-mails, rumour and heresay. When a major story breaks in the west the traditional media, despite biases in one way or another, seem to have the same pace and at least a much information. Plus, I know who to blame when the information is wrong if it comes from a traditional outlet
        catch23 14y ago
        I guess it depends what you categorize as social media. I think bloggers also fall into the social media camp. There's a very thin line between bloggers and journalists. Would you say the bloggers on huffington post talk chain-mails and heresy? I think in China the big name bloggers are probably equally respected as any journalist would be. I'm slightly doubtful that someone would create a fake scene of 22 kids who got stabbed, for the purposes of social media juice.
        pretoriusB 14y ago
        >Would you say the bloggers on huffington post talk chain-mails and heresy? Huffington Post? That's the worst kind of BS blogging and bad journalism. If HP's your idea of "social media", then they are far worse than traditional media...
        robbiep 14y ago
        I tend to agree with pretoriusB re the HuffPo. I also think bloggers/the new 'blogger-journalist' are more suited to investigative and opinion pieces rather than the breaking news o the day. Certainly you are right that there is a fine line between blogging and journalist. With regard to 22 children stabbed, I agree that I don't think someone has made this up. But this is in china, not in the west, and as other posters have noted and I tend to agree having spent some time in china (well.. A couple kf weeks) that social media >> their state outlets. There are numerous instances of weibo being used to circumvent state censorship, despite being censored itself- the enterprising Chinese netizens use alliteration and 'read between the lines' to overcome this.
  - toyg 14y ago
    I don't think the order would be "everybody is free to broadcast everything they want from now on", these things take time. An actual incident is an actual incident, a fantasy film is just that: a fantasy. Also, reactions to live events are much more "automatic" than broadcasting a film released years ago and that has, likely, cleared a number of censorship checks at high levels.
  - eliasmacpherson 14y ago
    Interesting, I didn't know that story was buried. People have been advocating downplaying the role of the killer in the recent Kindergarten massacre and focusing on the victims in the fear that the attention paid to the killer would promote copycats. However, burying the whole Kindergarten story was not suggested.
  - willyt 14y ago
    Maybe it was suppressed but not for nefarious reasons? Probably part of the reason that these attacks take place is due to the desire of the perpetrator to rip a big hole in peoples comfortable everyday existence. A response to this is to suppress news of these attacks. In a western democracy this is not really an option. I'm not saying that I think that these events should not be reported, but they are massively sensationalised by western media and this is not always necessarily helpful in the long run as it glorifies these acts in the eyes of future potential perpetrators when they see the impact they could have on public consciousness. I don't want government censorship of the media, but I'm also not comfortable with the way the media behaves, speaking as a citizen of the UK. I don't know what the solution is to balance the two extremes.
gtr32x 14y ago
Why must there always be a pessimistic view towards China on matters like this? This is not a programming error. News of this programming to be aired had been circulating on the net several days prior to the actual airing around various forums and weibo. People have taken screenshots of the official CCTV6 scheduling of V at least two days before airing. Hence if it was actually a mistake it would have been taken down already. I am pro China no doubt and it just saddens me that most views towards China must always carry a doubting overtone. If something good is happening, we as Chinese people applaud it. We sincerely wish the West to do the same, rather than passing off every positive change that China is making as mistakes. Perhaps I'm reading into your comment too much, in which case I apologize. Perhaps we are all reading into the matter too much...China isn't as horrid as how Western media portral them.
- felipe 14y ago
  > China isn't as horrid as how Western media portral them. There's definitely a misconception in the west in this regard. I've lived 2 years in China, and I was surprised to learn how much freedom the common Chinese citizen has, in some instances even more compared to westerners. In specific to this post, there is a lot of "dissident" cultural productions freely available. To just take an example of a recent movie that comes to my mind right now: "Let The Bullets Fly", a comedy-action where a Robin Hood-type thief tries to rob a village ruled by a criminal ruthless kingpin, supported by a corrupt governor. (spoiler alert) at the end, the hero organizes a militia, distributes guns to the entire village and takes over the village. It is absolutely clear this is a satire over current Chinese politics affairs, yet it was released as a major movie in cinemas everywhere. Figures like Ai Weiwei only perpetuate this misunderstanding that China is some kind of North Korea, when in reality there's already a lot of "challenging" going on.
  - jff 14y ago
    A movie about villagers rising up to overthrow a ruthless capitalist and his running dog governor? Yeah that'll never fly in communist china.
    - 14y ago

toyg 14y ago

TFA mentions that "Xi Jinping assumed office as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China on November 15th and he may have brought a more liberal attitude with him"... Time will tell, I guess.

veemjeem 14y ago
Somehow I doubt this. Only a few days ago when the news of school shooting broke out, China had a similar incident a day later where a man stabbed/injured 22 children. However, that story was quickly snuffed and the only place you could find out about it was on China's twitter (weibo). I doubt one man could easily hand over the reigns of the media.
- steve19 14y ago
  How do you know it actually happened and that it was not just a false rumor spread on social media?
  - veemjeem 14y ago
    At least in China, the "people" network is usually more trustworthy than the major media outlets. I can understand from the western perspective that we should be doubting social media first. People were posting pictures of the injured children. It's possible that the photos were doctored, but I doubt anyone would go to great lengths doing it. Also, when you stab 22 children, I'm sure it will be big local news at least...
    - TeMPOraL 14y ago
      > I can understand from the western perspective that we should be doubting social media first. Should we? I have never seen a situation where social media were any less than an order or two of magnitude more trustworthy than traditional outlets.
      - robbiep 14y ago
        Really? (with regard to in the west) Most of the social network 'news' I see is total crap. The stuff of chain-mails, rumour and heresay. When a major story breaks in the west the traditional media, despite biases in one way or another, seem to have the same pace and at least a much information. Plus, I know who to blame when the information is wrong if it comes from a traditional outlet
        catch23 14y ago
        I guess it depends what you categorize as social media. I think bloggers also fall into the social media camp. There's a very thin line between bloggers and journalists. Would you say the bloggers on huffington post talk chain-mails and heresy? I think in China the big name bloggers are probably equally respected as any journalist would be. I'm slightly doubtful that someone would create a fake scene of 22 kids who got stabbed, for the purposes of social media juice.
        pretoriusB 14y ago
        >Would you say the bloggers on huffington post talk chain-mails and heresy? Huffington Post? That's the worst kind of BS blogging and bad journalism. If HP's your idea of "social media", then they are far worse than traditional media...
        robbiep 14y ago
        I tend to agree with pretoriusB re the HuffPo. I also think bloggers/the new 'blogger-journalist' are more suited to investigative and opinion pieces rather than the breaking news o the day. Certainly you are right that there is a fine line between blogging and journalist. With regard to 22 children stabbed, I agree that I don't think someone has made this up. But this is in china, not in the west, and as other posters have noted and I tend to agree having spent some time in china (well.. A couple kf weeks) that social media >> their state outlets. There are numerous instances of weibo being used to circumvent state censorship, despite being censored itself- the enterprising Chinese netizens use alliteration and 'read between the lines' to overcome this.
- toyg 14y ago
  I don't think the order would be "everybody is free to broadcast everything they want from now on", these things take time. An actual incident is an actual incident, a fantasy film is just that: a fantasy. Also, reactions to live events are much more "automatic" than broadcasting a film released years ago and that has, likely, cleared a number of censorship checks at high levels.
- eliasmacpherson 14y ago
  Interesting, I didn't know that story was buried. People have been advocating downplaying the role of the killer in the recent Kindergarten massacre and focusing on the victims in the fear that the attention paid to the killer would promote copycats. However, burying the whole Kindergarten story was not suggested.
- willyt 14y ago
  Maybe it was suppressed but not for nefarious reasons? Probably part of the reason that these attacks take place is due to the desire of the perpetrator to rip a big hole in peoples comfortable everyday existence. A response to this is to suppress news of these attacks. In a western democracy this is not really an option. I'm not saying that I think that these events should not be reported, but they are massively sensationalised by western media and this is not always necessarily helpful in the long run as it glorifies these acts in the eyes of future potential perpetrators when they see the impact they could have on public consciousness. I don't want government censorship of the media, but I'm also not comfortable with the way the media behaves, speaking as a citizen of the UK. I don't know what the solution is to balance the two extremes.

gtr32x 14y ago

Why must there always be a pessimistic view towards China on matters like this? This is not a programming error. News of this programming to be aired had been circulating on the net several days prior to the actual airing around various forums and weibo. People have taken screenshots of the official CCTV6 scheduling of V at least two days before airing. Hence if it was actually a mistake it would have been taken down already. I am pro China no doubt and it just saddens me that most views towards China must always carry a doubting overtone. If something good is happening, we as Chinese people applaud it. We sincerely wish the West to do the same, rather than passing off every positive change that China is making as mistakes. Perhaps I'm reading into your comment too much, in which case I apologize. Perhaps we are all reading into the matter too much...China isn't as horrid as how Western media portral them.

felipe 14y ago
> China isn't as horrid as how Western media portral them. There's definitely a misconception in the west in this regard. I've lived 2 years in China, and I was surprised to learn how much freedom the common Chinese citizen has, in some instances even more compared to westerners. In specific to this post, there is a lot of "dissident" cultural productions freely available. To just take an example of a recent movie that comes to my mind right now: "Let The Bullets Fly", a comedy-action where a Robin Hood-type thief tries to rob a village ruled by a criminal ruthless kingpin, supported by a corrupt governor. (spoiler alert) at the end, the hero organizes a militia, distributes guns to the entire village and takes over the village. It is absolutely clear this is a satire over current Chinese politics affairs, yet it was released as a major movie in cinemas everywhere. Figures like Ai Weiwei only perpetuate this misunderstanding that China is some kind of North Korea, when in reality there's already a lot of "challenging" going on.
- jff 14y ago
  A movie about villagers rising up to overthrow a ruthless capitalist and his running dog governor? Yeah that'll never fly in communist china.
  - 14y ago