Ironic. When someone said on anti-cnn.com that the west media is unfair and must be responsible for the "false reports". But they don't realize that the state media totally telling lies, don't forget the torch was quenched for three time in Paris. Quite a humiliation rather than a triumph. Damn it!

China and New Zealand signed a free trade agreement yesterday. The agreement is China's first such pact with a developed country.

CLEARLY the most important news of the day. Let's hope that cheaper butter and cheese arrive sooner rather than later to a renrenle near me.

peter:
又来了。。也不知道到底是谁无知.
快来吧，我们全体中国人等着你们来救我们呢，真的。我们等着你们告诉我们所有事情真相呢。

I wonder if Chinese media cropped any pictures to prevent showing demonstrators? Can someone with no life please set up anti-BeijingYouthDaily.com or the like and expose the truth? Thanks in advance.

Peter,

I felt the incident is more a humiliation to French Police nd French government than to China. And if the Chinese local media got it on full coverage, I guess tonight the French embassy would be more busy and noisy than Wang Fu Jing. Probably the travel agent in China would have to urgently print out Tshirt with "我不是法国人"(I'm not French) and hand them out to all European-looked tourists. XD

well，the main point is we all know chinese media some time lies, like some bulllshit GDP,corruption.you can simpily understand this as chins dont want to "lose face".but western medias always assert they are the one who is always fair,impersonal,telling truth.so that is even more ashamed that some media like cnn lies about some bullshit.anyway i suppot anti-cnn, it at least destroys the myth that western media never lies. also i think it is a good lesson for both chinese media and western media to learn. also don't think about chinese people will totally believe what chinese newepaper's word,(we already know the fire may be extinct) seems like some westers trust everything their newpaper says.

fatty said: "anyway i suppot anti-cnn, it at least destroys the myth that western media never lies."

the extent to which this myth is subscribed to in the west has been oversold by certain elements in china.

westerners have a long tradition of publicly addressing media error and bias .

thoughtful investigations of these issues, though uncommon, are essential to the conduct of a free press and to the advancement of civil society.

sites like anti-cnn, however, in spite of their disclaimers, do more to inflame national/ethnic/racial hatred than they do to illuminate the issues of media error and bias.

b. I agree with most of what you said, but "sites like anti-cnn, however, in spite of their disclaimers, do more to inflame national/ethnic/racial hatred than they do to illuminate the issues of media error and bias." You think the media error and bias did not flame or were flamed by national/ethnic/racial hatred in the first place?

Cha:

"You think the media error and bias did not flame or were flamed by national/ethnic/racial hatred in the first place?"

no, i don't think that.

but neither do i think that two wrongs make a right, unless of course we're competing in a race to the bottom.

"westerners have a long tradition of publicly addressing media error and bias."

b, did anybody address western media bias in covering Tibet? I am not talking about the cropped and misused pictures, I am talking about the blatant one-sided coverage. Well, has anybody addressed it?

Show me please.

Pffefer

Your comment seems to imply that all Western media was saying the same thing, which isn't true at all. Various western newspapers have carried critiques of the Free Tibet movement -which ought to count as critiques of what one organization's biased viewpoint. See for example this New York Times article, which has been linked to from Danwei before. link

Other than that, your question is difficult to answer, because you don't say which specific viewpoints you want to see critiqued.

I spent the day in France watching on TV the adventures of the "flame" in Paris, in my little French village... What happened really was amazing and really chocking... worse than anyone could have imagined... Well, just like when Chinese "students" after a football match were burning Japanese flags in front of my home at Gongtibeime'r a few years ago, with the police helping them with matches and from possible Japanese supporters... (to be frank, I am a French Caucasian, born in France, but knowing too well China -stayed a total of several years there since 1978- and also tend to take the side of the weakest in front of the PRC armed forces, Lafayette's style, err..., either HuJias or Tibetan monks...); but I really felt in my bones the insult to our beloved Party when I saw this surrealist scene, a Chinese top guy from the Embassy or the COC unable to control himself on the side of his chauffeured car, shouting order to the few dozens of Chinese policemen/bodyguards/secret agents with earplugs and microphones, who were in fact managing the show around the flame with nice pale blue jogging suites and Ray bans, and this top guy with his own short wave communication device in hand shouting in Chinese and cancelling on the spot the meeting with the mayor of Paris and giving orders to French officials in the middle of the street, shortening the whole thing and then in fact asking his Chinese cops to turn off the flames in the hands of the sportsmen (there were 2-3 flames in fact, weird ? just in case probably...). There were 3000 French policemen, including 100-200 on rollers around the blue Chinese guys and the flame, but there were maybe 10-30,000 guys protesting against the PRC all along the 30-40 km, including climbers on the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame or the City Hall popping up with giant banners and Tibetan flags, etc. and including MPs from all parties with banners in front of the Parliament with a giant banner for "human rights in China" and Tibetan flags ...including an MP who is the boyfriend of the lady Minister of Interior in charge of supervising the police (apparently the Chinese embassy had corrupted some French policemen, as the next day the same Minister launched an internal inquiry within the Police in order to know who had given orders to some French cops to try to catch all Tibetan flags along the roads...). There were also some Chinese students with PRC flags insulting the others... Incredible show. In fact it is a cultural gap, indeed difficult to understand for the Chinese, because the next day, it was the same show again all over France, with the same exhausted cops, but with different guys -more violent in fact- and other banners (something to do with secondary school students defending budget cuts in the name of their teachers...). In fact the whole thing is a revenge: Friday last week the police in Beijing arrested rather roughly in a bar in Sanlitun a dozen of French students of the French Lycee (a Lycee precisely just located on Sanlitun), and kept them for several hours (unhappily I think many of these French students were black... and the story wasn't new concerning black guys in Sanlitun; I have memories in 1981 of Chinese students attacking the rare black students in the Tsinghua-Beida area for having "seduced some Chinese girls", and the police helping the Chinese students in bringing wooden sticks).
Also the French police which had a contract in Beijing for training the Chinese police -for riots!- had stopped its training since the events in Tibet... So maybe the Sanlitun events were already a revenge. And Paris was a (big) counter revenge ? Surprisingly no media in France never mentioned all these subjects together and made the connection between these events... Sure, there is revenge in the air... Let's go back safely to my gardening and pure air...

interesting bit of trivia--does anyone know why we even have a torch relay for the Olympics? It's not an ancient Greek Olympic tradition. In fact it started with... the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I quote from Wikipedia:

The modern convention of moving the Olympic Flame via a relay system from Olympia to the Olympic venue began with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

The relay, captured in Leni Riefenstahl's film, "Olympia", was part of the Nazi propaganda machine’s attempt to add myth and mystique to Adolf Hitler’s regime. Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as the perfect way to illustrate his belief that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the modern German Reich.

Now there's no useful reason to accuse China of carrying on this tradition as we'd have to blame every other nation that has followed suit prior, but at the same time it seems not to be in great taste for them to flout the "triumph" of the torch relay either.

to b.
"I agree with most of what you said, but "sites like anti-cnn, however, in spite of their disclaimers, do more to inflame national/ethnic/racial hatred than they do to illuminate the issues of media error and bias."
well, i do think some angry chinese youngth publish some words seem like nationalism, and some of them seem more like lean to to support chinese government and media instead ask them to think.i am curious to know where you got this answer, seems like you also read it from newspaper or someome'blog, instead of go through all those comments on the anti-cnn's fourm. the majority people here more concern about the lies from english/french/german newpaper, and they blame those peole who did violence in march, and also some white aginest to the olymipic. none of them says something in bad attitude to regular Tibetans. so what is national/ethnic/racial hatred? can you say arrest a black man in america for he throw stone and burn someone's house is racialism? no, you can't say that, right? it is for the safety.same as this, people from anti only ask to be tough to those people who are voilence, and who are planing more riots. and blame the duty of media.i don;t see anybody here want to aginest Tibetans, most of them are pretty vigilant to use their words, as they worry other people may misundertand their meaning, but sadly, here other still define with the 10% or even less comments from their forum. not the majority.

about one saud talking, well, of course there are some westerners talk about not support the independence, but their voice is so weak and small compare with their media. i alos read a story about a peofesson from finland published his articles about not support tibet independence was asked to do some crop to his words, and received lots of emails and letters insulted him.maybe some support him? but surely rare.and we all know how powerful medai is, they can lead your mind and act, you wont; realise it, you are still thinking is your own idea.and to be honest, those western medai;s attitue is quite mean.they feel too well for themselves.

about that bullshit olymipic flame. from the very first begining, i don;t like the idea to hold olympic in china, i think it will cause a big waste to our nature and people, and bad to our enviroment, and build more guly buildings,but i don;t think it is a good idea to realate olympic with tibet independence,if westerners are talking about human right,they also mean they should respect other people's right, not only focus to tibet issue.that can also mean what they do is the trample to human rights.so agin, from what they are doing, what i see is not only to spread their angry for tibet, also the cryptical animus to china, chinese people,chinese government, the economic expand from mainland. also the superiority complex from their skin colour, history and background.so what happen in frence and england also mean national/ethnic/racial hatred to whole chinese group. and now the proper react from chinese is discribed as national/ethnic/racial hatred.so now there is a simplt logic from this, no matter what chinese people do, it is national/ethnic/racial hatred, no matter what tibet bad guys and westerns do, it is not national/ethnic/racial hatred.even they burn someone to death who just try to run away, instread of fight with someone who was armed.

of course lots of chinese people ask for the freedom of speech and rights.but when people talk about those, how can you say it is from their own desire and needs, so there is a ambit, it can be expend boundless,it should stay in the barrier that is no harm for ohers.but in china, it will take time, it is not like a switch you can just change it by one click. i don;t think all those "beloved" enropean government and media can do any better then what chinese government does.

and, i do think people will take my words partly, as selective dump and blind is our human nature. no one is exception. so, dear all justice fighters, think about that,when you ask other people think in different view? how about yourself?

JL, I have not read the NYT article that you provided, is it critical of the TGIE? If it is, it is by no means "mainstream" at all. Or one can look at it this way: This is after tons of stuff, editorials, analysis, articles condemning the Chinese government.

What do I mean by one-sided? Propagating on the behalf of the TGIE; presenting TGIE propaganda and claims as facts; not providing any background info on the conflict, history etc; completely ignoring the so-called "Chinese prospective". Note that I am talking about mainstream media.

@fatty-- I can't quite follow what you're saying, but I think I agree that most of us Westerners are uninformed or misinformed about Tibet. I do wonder though why China is so obstinate against meeting with the Dalai Lama to discuss the issue. Some officials have claimed to have concrete evidence against him and his "clique" showing he is behind the latest uprising, and yet it hasn't been presented to the world--why is that? Seems it would be pretty damning to the DL if the evidence was verified by independent sources.

But the other possibility is that the charges have been completely fabricated, which is probably what most of the rest of the world thinks is the case. Obviously the DL and his government in exile are far better at PR than the Chinese government, as right now it seems all but certain that he wants nothing but peace and stability in the region--he's not even asking for independence anymore, but merely autonomy. It's gotten him flak from some of his own people, which suggests to me he's sincere about it. It's just like the current US administration refusing to consider talks with Iran--why not? Because it legitimizes their status, and causes Bush to lose face? How I wish he would grow up. The fiasco and failure of Bush's leadership seems a lesson China would be wise in learning from--ethnic Tibetans revere the Dalai Lama, and there is nothing that can be done to change that. China would be making leaps and bounds toward appeasing them if it could only learn to appreciate that.

So the New York Times doesn't count as mainstream media now? Sorry, but that's just silly.

Pfeffer:

I wonder how closely you read things. Take this report from the Guardian, for example:
link

This report gives readers comments from Xinhua, as well the provincial governments of Tibet, Sichuan and Gansu. Surely that is giving the Chinese perspective? Yes, it also gives comments from other sources, but no way can you say it is ignoring the Chinese perspective.

Confused, if you run 100 articles critical of something and then one article slightly different, what is "mainstream"? 100 or 1?

JL, sure they have quoted comments from Chinese officials, including the stupid Chinese Foreign Ministry, that does not mean they covered the Chinese perspective. The Chinese perspective or their side of the story/spin is more than quoting a few angry officials condemning the Dalai Clique.

Pffefer, the viewpoint of an article or news piece does not decide whether or not its parent medium is mainstream. That is a matter of ratings and numbers. If Fox News runs a piece criticizing the "Dalai clique," Fox News is no less a member of the mainstream media for doing that. The same is true for an article in the New York Times that criticizes T*b*t*n ind*p*nd*nc*. I may be arguing semantics here, but I think it's important to draw a distinction between "non-mainstream" ideas and "non-mainstream" media. You seem to be conflating the two.

Pfeffer

If you're going to argue that the Chinese perspective is different from the perspective of the Chinese government, fine. But if that's the case, then perhaps part of the problem is accessing that non-governmental Chinese perspective. The Chinese print and TV media sure doesn't cover it, and a lot of Chinese blogs just rant about how biased the foreign media is, rather than giving an analysis of the situation on the ground from their own perspective.

Confused, maybe I should have said "mainstream view". Certainly the NYT is part of the mainstream media, and being that it has not acted differently from other mainstream media outlets.

JL, I am not saying the Chinese perspective is different from the perspective of the Chinese government, they could be different but that is not the point here. What I am saying is there is a lot more to the Chinese perspective than remarks of some Chinese officials. Once again, history, background, Tibet 101 etc. At the least very least they should present both sides of the story, the Chinese government's and the TGIE's. 99 out of 100 they are just rehashing TGIE propaganda. On Today's METRO they told the readers that the Chinese government killed 140 some Tibetans during the recent crackdown. At the very least they should have used "allegedly". If this is not biased and bogus journalism, what is?

I am French, and as such I can say that France has an history of revolution and demonstration (specialy Paris)...

I think that the French had an obligation to let the people from Tibet express themselves, as they had an obligation to protect the Olympic flame...

However, the problem is not who received a slap in the face with relation to these events, but why are the people from Tibet so desesperate to be heard about what is happening in their country?

chris,
you are wrong.
the ppl from tibet refer to..?
do you know what the majority tibetan ppl think?

Concor1

Why do you think that I am wrong...

Is it because I said that the French had an obligation to let the people from Tibet express themselves, as they had an obligation to protect the Olympic flame...

Or is it because I said that the problem is not who received a slap in the face with relation to these events, but why are the people from Tibet so desesperate to be heard about what is happening in their country?