Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Bloggers vs. The BBC
Sandra writes "The BBC has an article about how chinese bloggers hate BBC interviews, as from their point of view all the Beeb cares about is censorship in China." From the article: "This being the internet, the conversation also involved various members of the community accusing each other of having ulterior business interests, being "trolls", or covertly blogging on behalf of the state. But overall, it looks as though mutual trust will be regained. And as well as the specific dynamics of talking about China, there's a new phenomenon here of what happens when bloggers are quoted. "
"Please BBC, stop highlighting our plight for freedom on the internet."
Hmmm I wonder who could possibly be behind this...
I would say that the BBC's remit is to be the voice of the British people
Then I guess FoxNews is the voice of the American people?
The BBC's remit is to be the EARS of the British people, not the voice, dumbass.
I don't think Chinese people expect the sort of combative, probing, in-your-face interviewing techniques that the best of the BBC journalists employ.
IMO, most BBC journalists really do the job - i.e. asking questions of the 'high and mighty' as well as the 'man in the street' that the viewers/listners would like to ask themselves, and not taking waffle and bullshit for an answer.
I'd love to see the BBC's Jeremy Paxman interview George Bush, for example - nah! never going to happen.
From one of the bloggers complaining about the BBC's aggressive interviewing:
No shit. Did you ever think that it's because, particularly in the case of politicians, they are unwilling to tell the truth, or at least give a straight answer?
The example given is a politician dodging the question of whether he threatened somebody or not. The (repeatedly asked) question was "Did you threaten him?" and the (repeated) answer was "I warned him.", without any clarification of the distinction being drawn. Why couldn't the politician say "No, it wasn't a threat, because..."?
This is very reminiscent of Paxo's famous BBC interview, in which he repeated the same question twelve times when the politician dodged the question. I think it's a good thing to do. If you defer to the interviewee and don't call them on it when they dodge the questions, you are, in essence, just giving them a mouthpiece to offer their unchallenged claims. That's not an interview, that's an advert. They might as well do away with the interviewer altogether if they can't get answers to their questions.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
If I were a reporter interviewing chinese bloggers, censorship would be high on my list. Some of these bloggers maintain there's not much censorship going on. Have they forgotten the whole MSN Spaces fiasco? In my book, government censorship is never acceptable, and we should never stop criticising it. That includes journalists being annoying and asking tough questions.
Let's see... industrial pollution, government corruption (which Chinese can protest, BTW, just not basic goverment policy), environmental impact of rapid industrialization, Chinese historical and cultural preservation, the recent toxic slick in Harbin. But that's just off the top of my head. I think the problem is that most British journalists are about as ignorant, incompetent and sensationalistic as their American counterparts.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
This is not good reporting. Good reporting, by definition should be reporting the facts, which in this case, are the interviewees responses. If they are not responding the way you would like, then you shouldn't be trying to force them to do so thorugh agressive bully tactics, just move on to the next question.
I do not have a hard time believing that censorship is the last thing on most of these guy's minds. Has anyone even looked at one of the blogs that was probed by the BBC? Does this blog look like it was being censored? (Hint - take a look about midway down the page at "The other side of China" post - not very flattering for the government)
I have no doubt that censorship in China is very troublesome. That does not mean it is troublesome to *everyone*. The guy was asked to give an interview about his blog, he probably wants to do just that, hopefully to promote it and get more page hits. Maybe he does not want to wax philisophical about the problems of his government. That's his right, so stop harassing him! You're supposed to be a member of a country who values freeodom of speech, give him a chance to exercise his.
Paxo: So, Mr. Bush. They say you're an idiot. Are you?
Bush: The accusationality of idiocity is only a tool of the widespread international evillism that is todays terrorism. We must spread liberty-ism(tm) throughout the planetiod and hand out billion dollar contracts to Halliburton and other Friends of Freedom(tm).
Paxo: Mr president, thank you. Goodnight.
Paxo: And now a brief look at tomorrow mornings papers...
Why on earth would they interview bloggers about that? Imagine a French news agency interviewing random American bloggers about the USA's foreign policy. You interview people that have positions relevant to your subject, not just some random loser that happens to have a website. Unless of course, websites are you subject.
Every Chinese guy hates the BBC. But I think I know the real reason why. It's because of history. Britain is the only country in the world that succesfully conquered China. The Chinese have always felt humiliated by the British. The Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion , still raise deep emotions among people of Chinese origin. It's the same reason why the Chinese hate the Japanese for the Rape of Nanjing. It's all about the loss of face.
In slashdot, we talk about stuff that matters, like whether this electric toilet seat can run Linux, is the recent act of MS/SCO/Sony/RIAA/Google.... violates the privacy of the user... It is fine to about that here. I understand what you mean, concern and worries... But, if one day slashdot becomes so powerful that it runs a cable tech news network and start interviewing some random guy in the local mall about the same issue, you can expect they will answer huh!?! It does not really mean privacy, online security etc are unimportant. It just means a large segment of the society has no interest in this in their daily life.
The Chinese bloggers being interviewed by BBC must be feeling the same as the joe sixpack in the local mall being interviewed by CowboyNeal. First, if that guy is a political activist, he or she probably won't have time hang around blogging for unrelated stuff. The other bloggers probably has an interest of travel, career, music, movie and porn. Asking them topics about politics is kind of out of context.
Second, sometimes, the journalists tend to ask questions which has an information content of close to zero. For example, ask if you can freely express about your opinion freely about some banned groups. Okay there are three scenarios. 1) that person answers along the line of "I don't want to talk about this/ I have no interest about this". The reporter reads that the blogger cannot express his opinion freely. 2) that person says no. The reporter reads that the blogger is controlled by the state. 3) that person says yes. The reporter says "yeah. I know the censorship is everywhere"...
While we all know censorship still prevalent in China, conducting such kind of interview is kind of meaningless. Many western reporters tend to have a mindset that there are only two groups of people in China: democratic activists and evil communists... The fact is the China has changed a lot. Most people just don't care about anything, or have an opinion quite different from the stereotype, just like anywhere in the world.
as a chinese citizen living in China for 25 years and moving to western country recently, I am constantly amazed by the propoganda western media and goverment dishing out everyday. And the most pathetic thing is that people buy it. The only thing I feel bad about china is that their propoganda system is much less sophisticated than western countries but they are making progress every day and learning fast.
Well, fuck, I actually do know something about Western culture, since I am a Westerner. And as a such, I can tell you that in most Western countries, you are only allowed freedom because the ruling party is *letting* you. I don't have the freedom to drive on the freeway in 190 mph, because the ruling party forbids it. In my native home country, I am not allowed to do nuclear research, because the ruling party forbids it. In neighboring Germany, I cannot express Nazi views, because the ruling party forbids it (and also does the same filtering as China with regards to US Nazi parties). In neigboring Denmark, I can't marry a pretty Chinese or Moroccan or even US girl until they are 25 or so...
And in the holy USA, the land of the free, you can't take a goddamn joint without risking being jailed, stripped of all your property, and also stripped of all your democratic rights. This is because the ruling party in the US decided you shouldn't be allowed to vote if you have a deviant opinion from theirs. And since the other party agrees, it doesn't matter that you formally have a democracy (a two party system).
The BBC, like most other foreign news sources, get their news from Chinese sources. There is a vivid debate in most areas in China, and people are interested.
The censorship in China really boils down to a few key points, like independence movements and other threats (or imagined threats) to the regime. Although I certainly don't agree with this or think it is a good situation, it isn't as bad in China as people in the West are LED to believe by BBC and others.
But to understand the censorship in China, one needs to understand the country, its history, its cultural heritage, its social context and so on. I suggest that you start with Confucius. Fuck, the BBC should be doing this background job for you, but they don't care.