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Man should never act as low as CNN

Among western news media who covered the riots in Tibet earlier this month, the US-based Cable News Network (CNN) was a markable one for its serious distortion of the truth and betrayal of basic journalistic ethics. The so-called western mainstream media organization posted a picture showing a bunch of people running in front of a military vehicle on the street of Lhasa. However, Chinese netizens found that the right side of the original picture, which was cropped out by CNN, shows some rioters throwing stones at the vehicle. The flying stones, burning motorcycles and insane mobsters throwing stones are still visible from the original picture.

But CNN editors just took it as nothing. They cut off the images that can fully reflect vicious faces of the rioters. Thus the implications of the picture published by CNN are just the opposite to the fact. Their reports aroused great indignation from netizens all around China. Angered by the distorted coverage, they united to hit back at what they called "a conspiracy", even with a slogan “Man should never act as low as CNN”!
The slogan looks unfriendly, but expresses the anger of Chinese netizens. A netizen said: “CNN had cropped the picture, cutting off the part showing rioters attacking military vehicles. This is distortion of facts and can mislead the readers. What’s the motive behind this?” Another said:"Chinese people can not neglect the evil ambitions behind this.” “CNN’s hypocrisy and ugliness was fully exposed by this biased report,” wrote a netizen.
“The incident once again shows that: the western media are holding a biased attitude when reporting on China. They just ignored the facts and look at the actions of the Chinese government in an fragmented and arbitrary way. This may have something to do with their link to their respective governments. In addition, we can see from this incident that the so-called freedom of press advocated by western countries has underlying political motives. There is no ‘pure freedom of press‘ at all,” a netizen said.

Besides CNN, a number of other Western media also distorted the truth in covering the riots. On March 17, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) released a picture on its website showing Chinese riot police officers helping medical staff carry a wounded person into an ambulance. The caption on the website said “There is a heavy military presence in Lhasa”. British newspaper the Times uses words such as “military crackdown”, “violent control”, and “hundreds Tibetans were killed” in its coverage to distort the truth.
On Marth 18, the German newspaper Berlin Morgenpost posted a picture on its website in which police in Lhasa rescued a young man of Han nationality assaulted by rioters. But the caption distorted the fact as "insurrectionist taken away by police."
The American Fox TV said in a picture's caption on its website that the Chinese military dragged some protesters onto a vehicle, but actually the uniformed people were Indian police.
German news television N-TV used a picture and a video sequence taken in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu of Nepalese police arresting protestors in a report about the riots in Tibet.
A netizen commented: “Some western media have constantly denigrated China in their reports and created ‘news’ out of nothing.“
“The western media must have some hidden objectives in creating these distorted reports on the incident,” a Chinese wrote.
“Due to deep-rooted prejudice and different values, the self-esteemed ‘objective’ western media always cover news on China with bias and sometimes even prejudice,” said a netizen.
“How could western media call their reports completely ‘objective and justice’ when reporting on other countries’ interior affairs based on their own ideology and perspective?” a netizen noted.
It has been two weeks since the Tibet riots happened and lots of rioters have turned themselves in. However, Chinese people have not fully recovered from the aftershock of the CNN’s biased reports.
Chinese people, especially its vast number of netizens can not forget easily what the so-called western media’s ethic principles are. Today, whenever netizens found things unjust or biased, they would just say “Man should never act as low as CNN !”

2008-3-28 09:30 PM #1



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