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The Earnshaw Vault
Crowd attacks journalist, a long time before anti CNNPosted by Jeremy Goldkorn on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 11:08 PM
 Bullets from Sina: at least in 2008 they are virtual Graham Earnshaw was the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1980 to 1984, and he's been looking through his clippings, which seem to prove both that China has changed completely and also that China has stayed exactly the same. This spring and summer, Danwei will be publishing a series of these reports from the past. This is today's resurrected item: Crowd Attacks JournalistBy Graham Earnshaw in PekingNovember 16, 1981 A foreign correspondent in Peking was roughly man-handled by a crowd yesterday and then detained by the police for questioning after he took photographs of people beating up a young man in garish clothes. Stan Oziewicz of the Toronto Globe and Mail said the police told him he had "offended the masses by photographing them without their permission."
Editor's note: The image above with the CNN logo adorned with bullet holes is from this anti CNN Sina.com page. It's good to note that there has been some progress: sticks and stone may break foreign journalists' bones, but Sina petitions signed by anonymous youngsters on the Internet... There is more on the Sina campaign and general anti CNN stuff on Imagethief and on Sinobyte. |
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Comments on Crowd attacks journalist, a long time before anti CNN
What does this really prove, 27 years ago a journalist got man-handled in China. I can find in every country in the last 25 years a journalist getting man-handled. I bet in countries like USA, UK and France I can find a case of a journalist being murdered in the last 25 years. What does this post actual prove besides the obvious?
Does every post have to "prove" something?
In my days as a youthful public order offender in the UK it was certainly understood that it was better to chin any press photographers rather than appear in the papers breaking the law.
@J B
Anyway it's misleading, you know.
Negative news is news, positive news is not news. This thumb of rule is not bad for domestic news reporting (coz the good news is the news you already know anyway), but how about mainly repeating various bad news plus some irrelevant anecdote of a not-well-known-and-understood foreign country?
With such unbalanced views and reports, something can be actually and definitely "proved". It's anything but productive criticism.
You can read through this series (link) to decide for yourself.
The interesting thing in this article is not the fact that a reporter has been man-handled, this happens in every country as reaver said.
The interesting fact is the answer made by the police:
"the police told him he had "offended the masses by photographing them without their permission.""
The policy of "Mind your own business" is applied in China for a long time right now. And I think Lark is right on one point, in western newspapper: "negative news is news, poisitive news is not news" However in China I have the feeling it's the inverse. When they let filter bad news, it is generally to show how China is peacefull, protected, safe; or to let the mass revolt against the foreign oppressor.
@Neko,
Yes the bad news was seldom reported before, but nowadays, you will read bad news everywhere, corruption, raping, killing, death accidents, etc.
Made-up good news will be doubted and criticized, and good news (good in general sense) is also doubted because everyone has his/her own opinion.
Actually, I feel bad news and neutral news is much more than good news in quantity. Not one but many people around me express that this year is 多事之秋 (a time with too many incidents and accidents).
"When they let filter bad news, it is generally to show how China is peacefull, protected, safe; or to let the mass revolt against the foreign oppressor."
This is true and not true. It over-simplifies things.
I was taking the point of this post to be showing how much China has changed... the editor said as much. Assuming that posting this is an attempt to make China look bad seems to be jumping to a conclusion, if you ask me.
@J B
My "misleading" comment is for the very "Crowd Attacks Journalist" article, not for this Jeremy's. Sorry for not clear on this.