Corporate mediaâs leaked Chinese documents confirm China didnât hide Covid-19
It is important for American journalists to combat these misperceptions, so that the U.S. can learn from Chinaâs response on how to better deal with the current crisis.
CNN, the
New York Times and
ProPublica claimed to be leaked Chinese documents. Although these reports implied that China was responsible for how bad the pandemic has been because of its downplaying of numbers and censoring of critical information, these narratives are themselves misleading in several ways.
CNN (11/30/20) released âThe Wuhan Filesâ in late November, announcing âa string of revelations contained within 117 pages of leaked documents from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention.â According to
Posted by Josh Rudolph | Jan 14, 2021
The CDT Censorship Digest is a monthly round-up of censored speech, propaganda developments, and rights defense in China, compiled and written by CDT Chinese editors. We have selected, translated, and adapted relevant and interesting portions of the digest for our English readers, and encourage you to
On December 20, 2020, renowned East Asia scholar and Harvard University professor Ezra Vogel died at age 90. In a
With these words [on the rapid increase in economic livelihood, education. and longevity since 1989] Vogel indicates that he basically accepts an argument that the Communist Party’s Propaganda Department has been making for the past twenty years: that “stability” and economic growth show that the repression at Tiananmen was justified in the long run. When foreign dignitaries or journalists have asked about the massacre, the response of Party leaders has been consistent: if Deng Xiaoping had not taken “resolute” (i.e.,
A report published by the
New York Times and ProPublica on Saturday employed “leaked documents” from the Chinese government to reveal a massive Communist Party propaganda and censorship operation to control the political narrative of the coronavirus pandemic – beginning before Beijing even publicly acknowledged the virus.
“At a time when digital media is deepening social divides in Western democracies, China is manipulating online discourse to enforce the Communist Party’s consensus. To stage-manage what appeared on the Chinese internet early this year, the authorities issued strict commands on the content and tone of news coverage, directed paid trolls to inundate social media with party-line blather and deployed security forces to muzzle unsanctioned voices,” ProPublica wrote on Saturday.
No ‘negative’ news: How China censored the Covid-19 pandemic
At a time when digital media is deepening social divides in Western democracies, China is manipulating online discourse to enforce the Communist Party’s consensus. Updated: December 23, 2020 12:16:50 pm
Thousands of internal directives and reports reveal how Chinese officials stage-managed what appeared online in the early days of the outbreak. (Adam Maida for ProPublica/The New York Times)
Written by Raymond Zhong, Paul Mozur, Jeff Kao and Aaron Krolik
In the early hours of Feb. 7, China’s powerful internet censors experienced an unfamiliar and deeply unsettling sensation. They felt they were losing control.
The towers of Wuhan, rich in trolls. (Steff m.)
In the early hours of Feb. 7, China’s powerful internet censors experienced an unfamiliar and deeply unsettling sensation. They felt they were losing control.
The news was spreading quickly that Li Wenliang, a doctor who had warned about a strange new viral outbreak only to be threatened by the police and accused of peddling rumors, had died of COVID-19. Grief and fury coursed through social media. To people at home and abroad, Li’s death showed the terrible cost of the Chinese government’s instinct to suppress inconvenient information.
Yet China’s censors decided to double down. Warning of the “unprecedented challenge” Li’s passing had posed and the “butterfly effect” it may have set off, officials got to work suppressing the inconvenient news and reclaiming the narrative, according to confidential directives sent to local propaganda workers and news outlets.