Yellow journalism at its worst
Updated: 2008-04-17 07:22
The American Cable News Network (CNN) is making news about China - again. Last time, cnn.com editors cut out more than 10 stone-throwing Tibetan mobs from a news photo, leaving only a riot police wagon to show the so-called crackdown. It made millions wrathful at the naked show of photo-doctoring.
This time, an amateur anchor railed at the Chinese people, calling them "goons and thugs". He went on to describe Chinese-made goods as "junk".
Sixty-six-year-old Jack Cafferty, in a TV program called Situation Room that was aired on April 9, was obviously unhappy with China "holding hundreds of billions of dollars" of US paper deficits, with more and more American consumers "buying from (inexpensive) Wal-Mart", and certainly with the world's "changed relationship" with China, moaned: "The Chinese are basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they have been in the past 50 years."
Many, assumingly including US citizens, are stunned and shocked at such a racist and vicious attack on a group of people. As a matter of fact, over the years, the Chinese people have been on good terms with a huge number of people around the world - people of different colors, languages and from different continents.
As the head wind of world economy is changing its direction, Cafferty is getting sick.
Cafferty's despicable and shameless attack on an American national TV network has naturally angered Chinese Americans, who have launched an online petition, requesting an apology from CNN. The petition has got more than 11,000 signatures. China's Foreign Ministry, on Tuesday, also strongly condemned Cafferty's remarks, demanding CNN and the anchor himself take back the malicious remarks and apologize to all the Chinese people.
It is rare for the world audience to hear such a blatant and blasphemous attack against an ethnic group. What Cafferty did was use his privilege as a CNN anchor to insult China and slander all the Chinese people. It really is pathetic to see a journalist wantonly violating professional ethics.
The United States is known for its "melting-pot" culture. It dangles the "American dream", inspiring people of different races and ethnicity to emigrate to it. However, what Jack Cafferty did - watched by tens of thousands of CNN viewers in the US and elsewhere in the world - was evidence of the ignorance, rudeness and hostility toward China that afflict the minds of men like him.
After years of efforts by some Western media to demonize China have failed, some like Cafferty have now come to the forefront to directly assault China. If anything, this reflects the utter frustration and desperation of these people.
The biased reportage on the Lhasa riot of March 14 by CNN and other sections of the Western press has backfired. Tens of millions of Chinese, living at home and abroad, especially the young and Internet-savvy, have rallied together. They know they must fight back the slanderous and scurrilous journalists with one big voice: Stop doing it!
Comment by chinadaily.com.cn
(China Daily 04/17/2008 page9)
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