Chinese Media Response to Xinjiang Unrest Goes Proactive
The Chinese media response to ongoing unrest in Xinjiang has been noteworthy for the advertised speed and breadth of its coverage. (To say nothing of its accuracy.) Contrast what we have seen so far with coverage of last year’s violence in Tibet. Caught somewhat off guard by criticism about journalistic access — or lack thereof — as events unfolded in Tibet, it appears the Chinese government has taken a different, more proactive approach this time around. Take a look at the English language website set up over at Xinhua by clicking here. English language coverage has been pumped out rapid fire — this time, they were ready.
Not to be outdone, ChinaDaily quickly put out a piece — in English and primarily for Western consumption — announcing support from Britain, the United States and Turkey for the Chinese government response to the unrest. The Tibetan model seems largely to have been to take on conflicting foreign media accounts by pointing out perceived errors in reporting and raising accusations of bias. It looks like a new Xinjiang model has emerged: simply beat the Western journalists to the press (then point out errors and claim bias).
- Pictures of the events have appeared almost as they occur: pictures here (caution: graphic images).
- A press conference was held and foreign journalists were given the chance to ask questions (who knew a press conference would be such a photo-op?): pictures of press conference here.
It remains to be seen just how much access journalists are truly getting in cities other than Urumqi. The Beijing Olympics gave the Chinese government cause to rethink its approach to media relations during mass events. Has the government had a change of heart, however slight? Hopefully, but doubtfully. Regardless, at least there is an acknowledgement that journalistic access should be the default and restrictions should be the exception. We will leave you with excerpts from a curiously self-aware article about the noteworthiness of the Chinese media response, written by, well, the Chinese media:
More than 60 overseas media have sent journalists to Urumqi, capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, after a riot broke out in the city Sunday, leaving 156 people dead and 1,080 others injured.
. . .
“We disclosed information shortly after the incident. We welcome domestic and overseas journalists to come and see what happened,” Hou Hanmin, deputy head of the publicity department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xinjiang regional committee, said Tuesday.
. . .
Urumqi authorities have opened a news center, equipped with more than 50 computers with Internet access, to both Chinese and foreign journalists since Monday afternoon.
UPDATE: An article released today by AFP echoes and follows up nicely on this posting. View the AFP article here.
UPDATE 2: Rebecca MacKinnon now has a piece continuing this line of analysis. Her rendition can be found here. As usual, she’s quite brilliant.
[...] http://www.thenewdominion.net/994/chinese-media-response-to-xinjiang-unrest-goes-proactive/ [...]
THE GENOCIDE IN cHINA
There is a genocide which is worse and more violent than Hitler’s in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region’s capital of Urumqi. This genocide has been going on since 1965. There is one more genocide that has been seen in recent days, and in a few days, thousands of innocent people have been killed. According to the Chinese government’s own report, more than 800 people have been injured and 150 are dead, but the true number is more. (+500 dead, +1500 injured)
China has introduced this genocide as a public fight to hide their guilt and shame. In response to this, the government has blocked phones and internet connections so that they can easily continue their genocide.
This is murder, and we want you to not close your eyes to what is happening, to stop these shameful actions. We are waiting for your reaction.
You see this easly on this video:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jul/07/uighur-confront-china-troops
Chinese are waiting for killing with iron baton, but Uighurs only demonstrating
Turan you idiot, just search ‘Xinjiang riot’ on youtube and see whether those who were killed are Han looking or Uighur looking people. They are easily distinguishable.
Also, it wasn’t until the riots that I discovered CCTV Spanish and CCTV French. The Chinese propaganda people have all of their bases covered!
just returned from urumqi today and have been very struck by the differing media interpretations. urumqi and xinjiang cable television have been heavily propagandistic, with slogans broadcast at the end of each news program, followed by a song (motherland, weten) accompanied by a sort of sentimental video conveying the image of a flourishing and peaceful china, then followed by policy statements by top officials (bekri, wang etc.) This was on both chinese and uyghur stations at every opportunity. until i arrived in beijing today i had no idea about the gangs of han roaming urumqi and attacking uyghurs; i had thought this just a rumour. this was not mentioned in domestic press accounts. before leaving i was generally under the impression that the scope of the events was not as large as i now see. the information vacuum created by poor domestic media coverage seems to be giving way to rumours in the interim.