Christine Lu of the China Business Network studies on her weblog how CNN and other Western media outlets use the way news from China is often turned into a tool to get attention, not a tool to tell the truth. Christine uses the incident of the killing of an innocent bystander, who was - without knowing too many details by the Western media - turned into a blogger fighting for media freedom.
I just want to point out that what is often portrayed by generic coverage by CNN and reposted on blogs like TechCrunch often reflect a shallow level of understanding that instantaneously translates in our RSS readers as “evil Chinese government cracks down on bloggers in China” — without a better understanding of what sparked the situation to begin with and what the outrage in China internet is about. The Chenguan did not beat this man to death because he was a blogger. They were trying to keep from getting in trouble themselves for having their actions taped and exposed by a passerby.Reading the Chinese media needs a special skill-set, since they are a different breed than Western media, although they can be as diverse in the way they bring their news. But trying to make sense out of what Western media write about China, is almost as difficult to figure out and often was far away from the truth as Chinese reports about their realities.
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