This week I have a column in the recently unveiled English-language edition of The Global Times. This is a new gig and we’ll see how it goes. The first column is my thoughts on Timothy Garton Ash’s recent piece in The Guardian discussing overseas media coverage and China. My personal take is that quality of coverage ranges wildly and that even though writers should strive for objectiveness, everybody has their own biases and perceptions. That said, the way the foreign media is presented to Chinese audiences via Anti-CNN or, for that matter, newspapers like the Global Times*, dramatically oversimiplifies the diversity and complexity of the overseas media environment, and tends to subsume criticism of the criticism into paranoid fantasies of anti-China bogeymen. As I wrote in this week’s article:
There’s a lot of good coverage of China in the foreign media and too much bad coverage of China as well, but the idea that the “Western Media” operates as a giant cabal with the editors and producers of CNN, BBC, New York Times, Der Spiegel, and the Lichtenstein Daily Bugler all gathering once a month in a secret underground bunker listening as a clone of Henry Luce strokes a white Persian cat and dispenses marching orders on how to destroy the Chinese nation is obviously ludicrous.
It’s a subject upon which I’ve written before, but one reason I keep writing about it is because I continue to encounter common misunderstandings regarding the role of the media and the way the media operates outside the PRC. I thought that this was a good opportunity to take my concerns to the source, if you will. I hope you enjoy it.
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*I was thinking of a way to describe a bit my feelings about working for this particular newspaper, but the editorial board surgically implanted the latest in Electro-Muscular Disruption (EMD) technology, programmed to shoot 150 KV of electricity into my lower spine if I deviate too far from the established line so…
Congratulations! That’s quite a gig you got there. I was wondering, what was the editing process like? Did they change anything you wrote? Are you allowed to pick your own topic? Any chance your column will be translated into Chinese for the Chinese version?
“Henry Luce strokes a white Persian cat and dispenses marching orders on how to destroy the Chinese nation”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Jonathan,
To be fair, the editing process was relatively painless. My editor is an American and it’s his job to fight the battles with the Chinese overseers at the paper. Very little was taken out of the original and the overall tone was kept. I’m even surprised at a few things which made it in. So far, so good.
I pick my own topics (admittedly with a sensitivity toward what realistically can and cannot be run).
I don’t know how much will be shared between the English and Chinese editions. My guess is that the Chinese language edition has a pretty set group of staffers/editors and they are not looking to shake that up with a whole lot of new material from the English side of the house. I could be wrong though.
Hahah! That is great! I’m pleasantly surprised that they ran it.
Jeremiah,
Shame on you for freelancing on the mouthpiece of the evil Chinese government known as Global Times!! You will just be another Edwin Maher!!
Well done.
Media bias often comes in small and subtle ways. For instance, when Western media talk about the Uighur detainees at Gitmo, they are always referred as Chinese Muslims. On the other hand Tibetan separatists are never called Chinese Buddhists. The implications are that the Uighurs are Chinese but the Tibetans are not. Go figure.
StP – agreed about subtle biases generally, but i suspect that the uighur/tibetan disparity is less about separatism than it is an attempt to explain WTF uighurs are to an utterly uninformed american readership. people know about tibet in a shallow, references-to-golfing-with-the-dalai-lama-in-caddyshack sort of sense, but you just get blank stares when uighurs come up.
“Shame on you for freelancing on the mouthpiece of the evil Chinese government known as Global Times!! ”
Ever thought of applying for a job there, Pffefer?