The Sina.com petition against CNN and BBC has hit over 1.6 million signatures as of this writing, and will probably close out at 2 million before the weekend is over. I find the whole thing funny because I don’t understand how anyone can take so seriously a network that offers programs like MainSail, or Larry King Live for that matter. With the recent news of Dave Marash’s departure from Al Jazeera English, I can’t help but notice that AJE is still not available from any US cable or satellite provider, though available in 100 million households in 60 countries.
The Al Jazeera Arabic parent network has been condemned in the past by members of the US government, most famously Donald Rumsfeld’s remark in April 2004: “I can definitively say that what Al Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.” What Al Jazeera was reporting, and showing in graphic images, that upset Rumsfeld so much was that many civilians were being killed in U.S. bombings. Rumsfelds comments echoed senior military spokesperson Mark Kimmitt who said a few days before “The stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children are not legitimate news sources. That is propaganda, and that is lies.”
Conservative Americans have criticized Al Jazeera, both Arabic and English, for being a “mouthpiece for Al Qaeda” and a source of anti-semitic and anti-US propaganda, though others have pointed out that its hardly more biased then other global news networks. American cable providers probably don’t carry it because 1) there isn’t a huge outcry to carry it and 2) some of the conservative groups campaigning against Al Jazeera would launch protests and boycotts. Meanwhile, even Israelis, whose government has criticized the Arabic network in the past, have access to Al Jazeera English, and for six years the US cable provider Time Warner has carried CCTV-9, which is good and truly a mouthpiece it there ever was one.
Now ex-AJE correspondent Marash says there’s still an important reason to watch Al Jazeera English:
But you know, the thing that I loved best about the original concept was the sort of fugue of points of view and opinions, because I think that’s what desperately needed in the world. We need to know, for example, in America, how angry the rest of the world is at Americans. Our own news media tend to shelter us from this very unpleasant news. So if you watched and every piece seemed tendentious and pissed you off, and I don’t think that would be the case, but even if worst case the channel turned shrill and shallow, you would still want to watch them on the principle that millions—tens of millions—of people watch them every day and you need to know what’s going on in their brains.
This is precisely the sort of argument that many would make about CNN and BBC to those on the Chinese Mainland: Chinese people may disagree with it, even hate it, but their own news media tends to shelter them from unpleasant news and its important that Chinese people know what the rest of the world is thinking, just as Americans need to know what the Arab world is thinking, and so on and so on. It’s worth remembering, though, that China’s not the only place where people only seek out voices just like theirs.
Dave, it is insulting to even discuss US news media in the same blog entry as Chinese media. One responds to a free market, the other is controlled. There is no comparison and to discuss both at the same time insults free media and suggests that Chinese are seeing something close.They aren’t, and their silly replies about Tibet are move evidence of that.
Frank, Chinese citizens by and large don’t have a choice about hearing voices that criticize their government. American citizens do have a choice, and decide to ignore them anyway.
I don’t see how I’m suggesting the Chinese see something similar to American media. My only point is that its not just the Chinese who tend to stick their fingers in their ears and go “LA LA LA LA I can’t hear you” in the face of millions of foreigners criticizing them.
Great post, I have been waiting for your input on the Tibet issue. Hope you have more to say.
“and it’s important that Chinese people know what the rest of the world is thinking,…”
It’s not important for the Chinese people to know the thinking of those who are dead biased against anything coming out from their Chinese government. However, the Chinese do need to be aware of the pernicious western media campaigns with their unfriendly political agenda against their country in order to prepare for any eventual confrontation.
great post.
may i also add that comparative lackage of information also lead to competitive disadvantage, in business, and other fields. e.g. how would you negotiate a business deal if you do not know what others think and hence inoccently offend your potential business partner?
— the chinese media censors (and the us self-censors) media are doing their own people a disservice, though the case for China is much more serious.
@Chris: thanks, more coming
@Nano: if you believe that, fine. I’m not telling you what reaction you should have to foreign media. I’m simply saying you should have access to it, and you should make an effort to access it.
@Sun Bin: yeah, definitely true. When you have no idea the other side has certain strong opinions about you/your country, its bound to mess things up in any field.
“It’s worth remembering, though, that China’s not the only place where people only seek out voices just like theirs.” That is 100% true. Serious people should not be reminded of it, but, on the other hand, it’s easy to forget. The real question is, is there a difference not in kind but in degree in how China reacts to its media? (I suspect there is).
It’s understandable, I think, that many western readers are biased against anything with the CCP stamp on it. Even educated China hands will have subconscious aversions to the old-style propaganda language being recycled recently. How could any of us take Zhang Qiling seriously? The man is worse than Baghdad Bob. It’s hard for us to take each event and each item on its own merits, and that problem isn’t unique to us. The Chinese public is greatly disserviced by the utterly retarded censorship policies imposed upon it, and that has to be taken into account when discussing these issues, lest everything end in red-faced acrimony.
Frankly, CNN and others -should- be ashamed for even giving the nationalist hacks an opening for ‘debate’. They aren’t worth considering, and now people are being made to consider them because our media fucked up. And because western media answers to a higher standard, any fuckup will be doubly punished, even when that’s totally ignoring the issue at hand. That’s unfair, but that’s life. Meanwhile, Tibet burns. Is it any wonder that people on both sides are pissed?
Nano: The minority of Americans who truly believe or want there to be some sort of epic war between us and China is small and knows nothing about China. The number of people who actually care about Sino-American relations is soaring. Confrontation? Please.
Of course, the Chinese cannot possibly say anything right.
They have been totally brainwashed by the government. Every word that comes out their mouth is a repetition of the pernicious communist propaganda. There is absolutely no way that they possess critical and independent thinking and their so-called sense of injustice is nothing but government propaganda. They possess no mental capacity to tell truth from untruth, unlike their thinking counterparts in the West who are blessed with their Fair and Balanced media which never ever bend the truth and who of course treats people from other nations as equal sentient beings.
The truth CATEGORICALLY lies in the West. Don’t listen to the Chinese. Do you hear me? Never listen to them! And how dare those little yellow beings challenge the much superior Western media. I agree with Frank. It is truly an insult. He tells the truth.
What do you think about Al Jazeera’s critical reports on China? What do you think about Al Jazeera’s reports of Tibet protests? Al Jazeera is 100 times better than CNN!
China should ban all world media and only watch CCTV and drink Sanlu milk!
Also, in most parts of the world, educated people tend to try to read news from sources around the world (This is true at least in places I have been familiar with, mainly China and Germany). Only in America can people read 3 newspapers and have all of them be American.
Chinese netizens do not just read Chinese news. This is apparent if you go looking for blogs or news sites with comments sections. It is readily apparent that there is a large number of Chinese readership.
To most of your commenters, I think that they’re missing out on a crucial fact.
The people who voiced anger at Western media coverage of China didn’t just decide to suddenly start reading Western online papers. They’d been doing so for a long time. They only started voicing their opinions because the issues were about something they were familiar with and found jarring compared to their own personal experiences.
Unlike what most Americans think, Western media is readily available in China, I’ve watch CNN before when I was visiting China, and the “Great Firewall” is easier to get around than the software they use at an elementary school.