International Law

What?s Wrong with Western Press Coverage of China?

By Stan

Timothy Garten Ash poses this question in a really interesting Op/Ed in the LA Times.

Ash ultimately pronounces the biggest problem being a lack of volume of China stories. I agree that is a big problem, but I’m not sure that is the most significant one.

Most of the Op/Ed is an attempt to disprove the notion that Western media has an anti-China bias.

Ash’s main point on this issue:

In China, there is a widespread belief that Western media give a distorted picture of what’s happening there. There’s some truth in this, but it’s not for the reasons that Chinese Communist Party members or nationalist “netizens” imagine.

Most Westerners with a mild interest in China probably see a lot of stories about Tibet, the upcoming anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, corruption and popular discontent. They see less about the extent of popular support for the system, bright students still joining the Communist Party or experiments in economic and political reform, especially at the provincial and local levels.

However, this slant is not because of “anti-China” policy or prejudice. Hard as it may be for many Chinese to believe — because their own media reflect the policy of their party-state — Western governments have almost nothing to do with it. The cause lies in the West’s commercial news business, which is going through one of those “gales of creative destruction” that Joseph Schumpeter saw to be characteristic of capitalism.

As they compete fiercely for readers and viewers, mainstream Western media tend to stick with stories that are familiar and interesting to them. They report about Tibet not because they are ideological China-bashers but because their consumers are fascinated by and care about Tibet.

Yes, their news stories on China’s domestic politics tend to the sensational and the negative — so do their stories about the domestic politics of their own countries. Those who edit and select these stories are just following the market-oriented rules of their trade: If it bleeds, it leads. Good news is no news. “Many Chinese city-dwellers moderately content with rising standard of living” is not a headline that would sell many papers.

There is at least an element of truth to this, and I understand that the West has its traditional “good guys” and “bad guys” and likes to uphold that theme on occasion. Whenever a story involves the Chinese government/army/police against any group of citizens, that fits in with the meme. And of course, stories involving violence, unrest, and the like are picked up — a story about revisions to the Patent Law will not.

If I have a fundamental problem with Western media when it comes to China coverage, it is the same problem I have with media coverage in general: it tends to be lazy. Some of this is a result of financial pressures, to which Ash alludes. When you have too few reporters given too little time to research and write their pieces, they tend to go with familiar stuff, talk to fewer sources, etc. There’s a reason why the same “experts” always seem to get interviewed for news articles — the news organization, or the individual reporter, already knows the person and can get a quote quickly and easily.

I don’t really buy the notion that these anti-China stories are run because folks back home are interested. There is a certain self-fulfilling prophecy to all this. A couple news organizations run with a story, it generates interest, then everyone else picks it up because it seems to be popular. The media will sometimes engage in navel gazing and wonder how this stuff gets circulated, but rarely will they point fingers at themselves.

Just because a Right-wing think tank publishes an inflammatory report on the Chinese military and supplies you with an expert to interview does not mean that there is a newsworthy story there. Sure is easy to produce, though.

Years ago, the Western press was ensconced in Hong Kong, knew very little about mainland China, and churned out ridiculous pieces based on the questionable, and limited, knowledge of Western experts and the occasional press release from Xinhua.

Times have changed, and news organizations have folks here full time that are quite impressive. These folks have very long experience with China, travel extensively within the country, and flat out know their stuff. In no way do I want to cast aspersions on guys like that.

Unfortunately there are also other folks in the news business. We call them editors, and they do not live in China. I think their lack of knowledge leads to some very idiotic story choices. Moreover, those financial pressures discussed above also make it more difficult for locally based correspondents to devote sufficient time to in-depth reporting or putting together complex stories.

I think Ash has some good points, and I tend to agree with him that Western media does not have an anti-China bias, if one means that they somehow wish China harm.

However, these organizations are short staffed, underfunded, and sometimes manned by folks in HQ who know zero about China. When push comes to shove, I think this institutional laziness means that it is easy to go with “traditional” themes about China, straight out of the 60s and 70s: the totalitarian state, Communist ideology, aggressive foreign policy, etc. There is a whole group of commentators and experts out there more than willing to supply a quick quote supporting these themes.

To the extent that these themes are pushed on a regular basis, whether from malice or because of other motivations, I think we gotta call that a bias that certainly does not work in China’s favor.

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on April 17, 2009 (boomark / email).