3/27/2008

thoughts from tibet riot and media reaction, and mass grassroot reactions

oh~~ i have a strange feeling i'm gonna fail in some courses coz i can't stop searching and digging into the tibet riot issue and it has been several days, doing nothing, oh my god, my sensors, my voyeu couture...

I'm obsessed by people's reactions to the Tibet riot (actually, not just the Tibet riot, but how different media interprets Tibet riot), and people's collaboratively digging into the issue, researching, looking for clues, and showing the evidence to question media's authenticity. here comes everybody ;) ~~

I'm also obsessed by the cross border critique and the global voices being heared by people, back and force, which give a lesson to both Chinese people and westerners, which also shows bias from both of them from the comments. But the most fascinating thing is people, no matter what ideology they have, how much money they make, what color the skin is, under what education system, both formal education and informal ones, such as the media, people all pursue truth and fact!!! So finding out the fact became goal for everybody, thus makes us as a group, focusing on one thing, that it: what's actually happening in Tibet?

The Tibet Riot built a bridge for people far from each other, geographically and ideologically, culturally and economically, start conversation, discussion and question, even condemn, to both each other and themselves. It's ok, as long as that helps digging out the truth.

I'm also obsessed by the ties of US and China in such a globalized world, i mean, the economic ties. Even though, we put what's the truth aside, not talking about weather tibet should be free or not, the simple question is: Will US really support Tibet, regardless of China? will boycott to Olympics happen?

It reminds me of the old article Dano brought up: Foreign Affairs Big Mac I http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B03EEDD123FF93BA35751C1A960958260

Anyway, so what happened these past 10 days was :

My attention was caught by CNN and NYT's news about Tibet Riot, shocked by how stupid Chinese government was to attack Tibetans, since that's not logical at all, I actually didn't believe they attack a peaceful protest in Tibet, such a sensitive place at such a sensitive time before Olympics, i mean even without any patriotic judgement, just simply based on the logic and rationale, and the basic knowledge about Tibet and China, I felt the news was really bizarrer.

Then I followed the news, turning back to a Chinese media, sine.com.cn, which linked to CCTV, broadcasting the video and some pictures. The interesting thing is that pictures are almost the similar, either in CNN or in Sina, but the interpretation is different. I also didn't trust Chinese state owned media. But this time, these media used same batch of pictures and videos, telling different stories, that interested me a lot. At least one telsl lies or both?

I admitted I'm not so careful finding the tricky little things in those photoes, until here, in globalvoicesonline, blogs by chinese people digged into the media: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/03/24/china-bloggers-declare-war-on-western-medias-tibet-coverage/
http://anti-cnn.com/

CNN's march 14's online news about tibet riot chopped the picture and gave a biased report (this link and picture is already taken down by CNN as i traced back yesterday, but google cache and other media sourcing from CNN still has them, just google "report: 100 dead in tibet violence" which was the title of that piece of news in CNN
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/tibet.unrest/art.lhasa.riot.afp.gi.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/tibet.unrest/%3Firef%3Dhpmostpop&h=219&w=292&sz=13&hl=en&start=1&sig2=zz32wtZBFua8ui1V3bcRHQ&um=1&tbnid=vP_Xz8v1Z_nGLM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=115&ei=kO7rR_nBAZf0edeo2YYB&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dreport:%2B100%2Bdead%2Bin%2Btibet%2Bviolence%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN
http://byfiles.storage.live.com/y1phrrOYdDY5fv4BIN6AIAuctuXHf7ekDftxK8ERgGOf_9aofkLErbcis1DdkBmzeMssQiL3_s-knc

Below: the picture is not taken in Tibet, China, but is used by time.com as a support to its news. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1722509,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-bottom

There are other evidences from GlobalVoicesOnline, showing how the news being tailored with purpose by media giants: bbc, fox, times, rtl.

Yes, I also don't trust Chinese state media, then I stared researching into it. Looks like the evidence (pictures and videos) came from a foreign tourist: http://kadfly.blogspot.com/. It's amazing this normal tourist, not a journalist, just used his camera documenting what happend, triggered a lot reactions. It was ridiculous some comments even said he was with Communist Party. Another foreigner, a writer from the economist http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10875823, was also eyewitnessing the whole thing and finally was interviewed by CNN.

That's basically how the thing was. hungry now, b.r.b.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I read your arguement carefully. I've studied that for 2 weeks that issue. I saw lots of media ( likes CNN, ECONOMIST, IHT, CCTV, ETC ). and I attended the community that support to protest "free tibet." But I could not stand to anyone's position. Too confused and I don't know who tell the truth. So I wonder How does chinese think about it. But I guess you don't make your side, too. My Enlgish is not good. So I'm so difficult to express my opinion. But I want to share with this matter with you. glad to see you.