In a flurry of indignation, western media outlets, including some masquerading as ‘left’, such as the Guardian, deplored the unwelcome attention of Chinese citizens towards a pair of ‘foreign’ reporters:
Reporters from the Los Angeles Times and German outlet Deutsche Welle were confronted by an angry crowd in Zhengzhou on Saturday, who filmed and questioned them, and accused them of “rumour mongering” and slandering China. Other journalists have also been targeted, with a specific focus on the BBC. (Guardian)
Despite the fact that the whole incident ended civilly, western journalists, Alice Su and Mathias Boelinger, took to Twitter to ‘sook’ about their experience.
Su said they were in an area where underground markets had flooded and many shopkeepers had lost their assets and were “distressed about insufficient government help”.
“There were many other ppl [sic] in Zhengzhou and the surrounding worse-hit areas who were open and even eager to talk about the destruction and difficulties they’re facing,” Su tweeted. “But this crowd seemed really angry and eager just to tell the foreigners off.” (Su, in the Guardian)
Describing the incident on Twitter, DW’s Boelinger said he was pushed and yelled at for “smearing China”, and that it became apparent the crowd believed he was the BBC correspondent Robin Brant.
“What I did not know at the time was that a manhunt was on after [Brant],” said Beolinger. “There is a vicious campaign against the BBC News in nationalistic circles and state media.” (Boelinger, in the Guardian)
Naturally, the Guardian provides no context as to what may have raised the ire of Chinese people and there is no questioning Boelinger’s completely unsubstantiated claims of a vicious campaign.
Boelinger’s super-sensitivity highlights a growing paranoia among western media and an unwillingness for the western press to accept any criticism. This was clearly articulated by another western media hack, Stephen McDonell.
McDonell blocks anyone who might have a contrary opinion. Hiding behind the broad sweep of “attack on me”, McDonell’s entitled posture is that “I can do whatever I want – belittle whomever I choose, smear whomever I choose, but don’t push back on me.”
I was blocked for highlighting that McDonell, who now takes a deliberate and pronounced anti-China stance, was a different reporter 10 years ago. Back then, when he reported on Xinjiang (the subject of another piece to come), there was balance and some attempt to provide some rationale for both ‘sides’. Clearly, this was an ‘attack on him’ and I was blocked.
Western media lives in a mythical libertarian land where insults have no consequences and free speech is what I am allowed to say and your push back evidence of ‘totalitarianism’.
Boelinger et al at DW are blithely unaware of their own negativity, bias and anti-China fixation. This leads to a contrived, almost neurotic, sensitivity towards criticism. One might expect that of a spoilt 3 year old, not a global news outfit.
In reporting on floods in Henan, Boelinger remarks:
the mayor of Zhengzhou came there at midnight with the policeman without press and police were pushing us away. She was having a look at the scene but she did not want it to be seen at this place. You did not want to be associated with what was happening. (China floods- Dozens dead and thousands displaced in Henan – DW News)
The whole report makes no attempt to recognise the work of authorities in helping people or to explain how the sheer magnitude of the flood overwhelmed rescue effort. Boelinger was interested in only one perspective in his report “China is a bad place because authorities don’t care”.
Meanwhile, in a grovelling tone, reporting about Merkel’s visit to German flood areas, DW gives us this obsequious cringe:
Angela Merkel was also examining the implications of this disaster for government policy. What exactly was the message after the trip. Well, she really made sure that people who were affected knew what message the government had and this is a message that says that the government is going to be there for the people short term, mid term and long term. That’s what she said. She also did address climate change and maybe we could hear to what she had to say about how it effects … (German Chancellor Merkel visits flood-ravaged region – DW News)
The obvious difference in reporting by DW between China and Germany exposes their determination to paint a negative picture of China – a picture that Chinese people are not going to accept or leave without some response. The fact that, all of a sudden, western media is ‘surprised and dismayed’ by people’s reactions only spells large the sense of neo-colonial entitlement that western media feels over China.
Western media has been caught out. Their hypocrisy over this incident – their complete failure to condemn the thugs in Hong Kong euphemistically labelled “Hong Kong pro-democracy protestors”, who beat up people in the street, set people on fire, smashed shops and signs, blocked traffic and caused havoc for months on end – this is what riles Chinese people to be so angry that they … smash things? No. beat people? No. Set people on fire? No.
No, they spoke excitedly for 10 minutes and then apologised.
For fuck’s sake, western ‘journalists’. If your skin is becoming so thin, perhaps see a specialist about that. Just don’t whine like a bunch of cry-babies.