Feedback on last week’s (4/16) Clinton-Obama Pennsylvania debate:
“Tom Shales of the Washington Post said [Charles] Gibson and [George] Stephanopoulos ‘turned in shoddy, despicable performances.’ The media critic Greg Mitchell said it was ‘perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.’ Salon.com said, ‘I’m not sure if we’ve seen anything quite as train-wreck, cover-your-eyes bad as the spectacle on ABC last night.’ Will Bunch, a Philadelphia Daily News writer, posted an open letter to Gibson and Stephanopoulos on his blog telling them, ‘you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself.’ And the group MoveOn said it would air an ad protesting ABC if 100,000 people signed their petition.”
—Amy Goodman, DemocracyNow (4/18/08) Click here for website.
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In response to the “word” posted on April 21, if Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos’ s performance is despicable, the U.S. media coverage of the Tibet riot is much worse and the need for a protest has never seemed so pressing. They’ve not only failed the American public, but the whole international community.
ReplyDeleteThe coverage on Tibet is anything but the truth, yet it would be too naive to call it a mistake or label it as ignorant. After all, it is a heavily mediated, poorly engineered capitalist propaganda--- rooted in anticommunism and complete with lies and distortions.
A few words to the Western media allies:
To German media: Nepal and China are two different countries. Although they are friendly neighbors, their policemen don’t wear the same uniform. If you do not know this, shame on you; if you do, still shame on you.
To BBC: Call it a large military presence while only showing an ambulance in the picture is just wrong. For your information, ambulance is only used for saving lives, and China is no different. If you do not know this, shame on you; if you do, still shame on you.
To CNN: Good job with the video editing and photo cropping. While making the story palatable to the American viewers, you’ve lost your international credibility. After all, you are not the only source people turn for international news—at least for people living outside of America, they turn to “non-professional” outlets as well. Thanks to google; thanks to youtube; thanks to web log.
To Washington Post: it is so not smart to only package the information from Western media, and so not professional to take it for granted. Well, if you think nothing is more credible than your allies, shame on you.
To all Western media: Lessons learned from covering Tibet. You need to start strategizing how to cover the upcoming 2008 Olympics. Anticommunist objectivity is surely the rule of thumb, but please at least don’t make it too outrageous.
--Lele Yang