Last month, I exposed three layers of bias that demonstrated the deep seated anti-China culture permeating the ABC. A simple search showed how the ABC inevitably takes an anti-China posture in on-line news stories. The same can easily be demonstrated on their YouTube channel. Although the ABC continues to deny this, it is so easy to demonstrate that one wonders whether they actually care about balance any more.
A deeper dive into a podcast story showed a willingness to support a conspiracy theory thoroughly debunked, over and over again, by experts. Once again, the statistics don’t lie. The number of words supporting the anti-China narrative as a ratio to those countering the narrative was a massive 100:1. Not to mention the framing with a sinister photo.
A further, even more forensic analysis of a 4Corners program on China indicated the depths to which the ABC has sunk in terms of fairness in reporting. Not only was 4Corners highly selective in sources, framed the entire story to evoke sympathy for Australians, but it also ignored oceans of context that could be brought to bear on any of the points being made.
Of course, maybe no-one really gives a shit. Maybe Australians just want a dishonest broadcaster. That would be fine, except that disinformation actually hurts Australia’s prosperity and may ultimately lead to Australia sinking into irrelevancy.
I guess, in the end, I care too much about Australia to let that happen.
But, in this article, I am going to analyse the mechanism by which the players in anti-China, including the ABC, conspire to make you believe that China is really, really bad.
Leading the witness
Beverley O’Connor can be said to have ‘form’ when it comes to China. She has had long interviews with several key anti-China players, such as Adrian Zenz. In her interview with Zenz, she essentially allowed Zenz to speak minutes on end with no challenge. Certainly, there were no tough questions.
O’Connor outdid herself in an interview with Adam Turan. Normally, journalists would maintain a kind of plausible deniability (the art of distancing yourself from a source so you can later deny you said such and such – “they said it, not me”)
But, oddly, C’Connor engages in what is called in TV court drama “leading the witness”. It’s obvious and should be embarrassing.
Turan is giving what might be titled ‘testimony’ about the experience in internment of his relatives. He brings to the narrative a ‘before and after’ set of photos. Now, such click-bait tactics should be enough to alert an astute journalist and a critical reader to this tactic. How many before and after photos have we seen in propaganda rags, carefully selected to give a sense of a ‘great fall’ in the fortunes of a celebrity?
Despite this amateurish technique by Turan, O’Connor leads Turan with “Is there any doubt in your mind that he died as a result of what happened in those camps?”
Now, keep in mind that Turan DID NOT OFFER this reason. He simply said, “There’s a big difference between two yeah and there we see that picture, he was released and then it wasn’t long after that before he passed away.” There are any number of reasons for Turan’s father’s death, but none are offered. Instead, O’Connor leads us to a proposition that internment killed Turan’s father.
Even when O’Connor asks about possible terror activities, it is she, not Turan, who rephrases Turan’s words to give a benign take on his family’s activities.
Turan
From my parents raised four of us we went to Uni, started in the university in Xinjiang is Turkestan and all of us work for the government sectors so we never been involved any terrorist activities.
O’Connor
Just going about your lives like ordinary citizen.
So, no question about ETIM? “Were you ever part of ETIM?” “Did you ever produce or pass on radicalisation materials from ETIM?” “Did any of your family ever train outside China with the ETIM?”
No real questions. Just a continuation of the narrative.
But O’Connor really outdoes herself. Not content to write Turan’s narrative for him, she now calls on a conspiracy theory to enhance the impact.
Turan
… that was my last don’t call me again because I won’t be able to pick up your phone and she said I’m at the, she didn’t say police station, but she said a local council office too. The very helpful young guys like you helping me so assisting me teaching me not to pick up the calls from overseas.
O’Connor
Was it almost like a coded message to you?
Right, so the helpful advice from the guy at the local council (not police – Turan’s words) becomes a “coded message”? What next Beverley? Well, let’s go for “ethnic cleansing”.
Turan
It could be jailed, could be sent to the internment camps. That’s some one of these reasons that China is excusing, you know if you have family members overseas or if you contact if you contact with the people from overseas will be jailed. So they could be jailed. So that’s why they can’t directly contact with them.
O’Connor
Do you see what is happening there is some form of ethnic cleansing?
Did you see that? Internment and jailing = ethnic cleansing.
Now, Turan, as a non-native speaker, might be excused for not quite taking on the connotations of “ethnic cleansing”. The slaughter in Rwanda comes to mind. This is where O’Connor is leading the audience. The horrors of the realities of “ethnic cleansing”.
But, sadly for O’Connor, Turan is a little less sensationalist than she might have hoped for. He moderates this to “cultural genocide”. But there’s no holding back O’Connor in ‘leading the witness’.
“So they’ve separated them from their families and they want to re-educate them to be Han Chinese?” Yes, it’s this little gem. Create a category ‘Han’ to represent all other Chinese people and then accuse China of trying to turn everyone into a Han? What does this even mean? It’s sufficiently vague to be a coverall for any activity that Beijing might do that has a cultural component. I mean, China can build a high speed railway to Xinjiang and the reason can be “Well, that just means Han Chinese can get to Xinjiang more readily and dilute the local population.”
When Turan makes the absolutely laughable claim that the Xinjiang is “The worst human rights violations in human history” O’Connor just let’s that sit, unchallenged. So, Beverley, none of these well documented and verified atrocities came to mind – The Holocaust, Nazi genocide of ethnic Poles, Cambodia, Armenian genocide, Rwandan genocide, Dzungar genocide, Genocide in Bangladesh, Massacres of Hutus during the First Congo War, Romani genocide, Darfur genocide, Bosnia, Queensland Aboriginal genocide, Canadian native children genocide, Rohingyas, Haiti, genocide of Aboriginal Tasmanians?
Sadly, neither O’Connor nor the ABC seem able to reach a level of slef-reflection to recognise both their active part in generating anti-China sentiment and developing consent for conflict with China. The only loser in this is Australia.