ESWN has summed up some reactions from Western media organizations to charges by Chinese bloggers, followed by the state-run Xinhua news agency, that CNN and German TV stations RTL and N-TV miseladingly cropped images and used video shot in Nepal to illustrate stories about Tîbet.
ESWN also translated part of a post from Chinese blogger Drunkpiano:
I feel that in this matter, the following things should be condemned:
1. Some Tibetans committing looting, vandalizing, arson and assault (even deadly) on Han and Hui civilians
2. The Chinese government locking down information and restricting freedom of religion, and even slaughtering innocent people (the last point remains to be confirmed)
3. The majority of western media were deliberately producing misleading reports.
I feel that some people deplored items #1 and #2 but they did not feel that they have to say anything about item #3. Meanwhile other people condemned item #2 and completely ignored item #1 and #3. To say it out aloud, this is the idea of “taking positions.” Once you take a position, your actions are determined. Why do you have to “take a position”? I feel that both positions are “asinine to the extreme.”
Someone said that all media will have their own predilections and therefore it is up to the readers to reach a fair and balanced conclusion by checking different media. This is not wrong, but the assumption is that the sum total of the multi-faceted facts and reports must be proportionate in order for the conclusion to be relatively fair. For example, A and B are having a fight; A punches B and B punches A back. But if the media only talk about A’s punch while glossing over B’s punch, then the impression would be that A is bullying B. In the reports on Tibet, I did not find the right proportions in the reporting. The Economist called the rioters rioters, and they were the only one. That is why many westerners (if not the majority) will get the impression from their media that “a group of peaceful demonstrators were mercilessly mowed down by the the Chinese government.”