As China Girds for Olympics, New Violence: New York Times

I remember when one of my journalism professor said, "There is no truth on earth. What we got is different interpretations."
Indeed, people from different perspective can come to totally different conclusions from one single event.
If you were as unlucky as Chinese government, you might have someone in your life who is never ever happy about whatever you do.

The raid on a border armed police division, which killed 16 policemen and injured 16 others, in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Monday morning, was suspected as a terrorist attack, according to local police.

The simple fact was somehow twisted into a well-planned plot to seize more control of the Chinese government by the New York Times.

The following sentence was the lead of the New York Times article:
BEIJING — Chinese officials have thrown an almost smothering blanket of security across this capital of 17 million in preparation for the start of the Olympic Games on Friday. Above all else, Chinese leaders say, these Olympics will be “safe.”


The experienced journalists put the most important infomation about the police attack into the second paragraph, which would only be read by no more than half of the readers. Is it a mistake, a coincidence or somehow a "must"?

As a student majored in journalism, I can't get a question out of my mind. When the U.S media boasted itself to be the fourth power, the fourth estate, is it really objective? or does it ever try to be objective.

Cartoon on Beijing air

I kind of like this picture actually....

China: Not That Mysterious

Honest Western Media? Not always

Known as the "throat and mouth of the government", Chinese media are not famous for their reporting freely. Yet people have to know that manipulating media is one thing every government would do.

The picture on the left was about how cnn.com cut the orginal photo and twisted the truth.

As you can see, the bigger picture on the right showed a group of rioters attacking public vehicles. Yet on cnn.com, the picture was cut. Readers can only see two men crossing the street. Obviously, the photo editor in CNN did it on purpose so that the riot in Tibet might looked more like government surpressing people.




Here is another reason why we should have a second thought before we buy every story published by western media.

The picture on the left is a comparision between the orginal photo and the edited version published on Bild.de, a Germany website.

The picture showed a protest in Nepal. Yet the editor of the website cut off the Nepal policemen who were maintaining orders in behind, only showed a crying lama lying on the ground.

Thanks to the extensive education of English learning, many Chinese who have good English skill now open some bilingual websites to send out different message about China. Anti-cnn.com should be the most out-standing one. In response to the incident that Jack Cafferty, host of The Situation Room of cnn, commented Chinese as " thugs & goons", the website became famous. Contributers, most of whom now live overseas, found out twisted reports about China and posted them on anti-cnn.com.

AP: Chinese man arrested in Canadian's death

The Associated Press published an article titled Chinese man arrested in Canadian's death on July 11, 2008.

A Canadian model was killed by a Chinese man during a robbery at her apartment in Shanghai.

The following sentence is quoted from the second paragraph of the AP article:

The killing of a foreigner so close to next month's Beijing Olympic Games was an embarrassment for Shanghai police, who at first only released a two-sentence statement after the discovery of her body on Monday.

As one of the top four news agency, Associated Press should be more careful before they publish any article. Robbery and killing happens every day all around the world. Why is this case so special?

Within a month, the Olympic Games will be held in Beijing. China no doubt in the center of world's attention. More policemen were working now to ensure the safety of the citizens; more volunteers were being trained to make sure the Olympics would run properly. Yet according to Associate Press, all these effort ended in vain because of one Chinese committed a murder.

Of course, there is some news value in this case, yet it's easy to see that what they really want to say is not about the murder.

Please, don't make a big fuss about everything happened in China.

To read more about the news article, please click here

Media in China to gain more freedom during Olympics

This is an article from Xinhuanet stating media will enjoy more freedom during Olympic period.

click here to read
Senior leader: China to ensure media freedom during Olympics

An article from International Herald Tribune

International Herald Tribune published an article on U.S citizens being considered spy in China.

click here to read U.S. spy cases raise concern on China's intentions

Step one to better understand the Beijing Olympic Games

All right, tell me the first three words that bumped into your head when heard "Beijing Olympics".

Human Rights? Communist? Tibet? Torch relay? Bad air?

Like it or not, Olympic flame will be lit in Beijing after 30 days. To have a well-rounded idea of the 2008 Olympic Games, you need to know how Chinese people react to it.

Click here to read the news articles from the biggest news agency in China, Xinhua.net.

Voices from different perspective are necessary before we find out the closest version of truth.

World, open you eyes to China

Consider the following questions: Which country enjoys double digit growth in the past 5 years? Which country has a population of 1.3 billion people? Which country has a history of 5,000 years with 56 ethnic groups?

Yes that's China.

But 2008 has not been a smooth year for China. China had received huge criticism on human rights, Tibet, Taiwan, even on toys in the past three months. Western leaders have threathened to boycott the openning ceremony. Snowstorm and a major earthquake further pushed the government into an awkward position.

As the Olympic Games draw closer, we can't help wondering, who will come to the Games? How does the world really think of China? What do people around the world get s to know about China? What kind of information are they receiving? How do they form their opinion?

To have a better understanding of these questions, I will use the following methods to help with my study.

• interviews
• surveys (please be helpful and fill out the questionair, please~)
• news analysis

Feel free to leave me message whenever you have any idea in your mind. Give me a chance, I will open your eyes to China.