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BEIJING - AS CHINA chaperones a group of foreign journalists to Tibet today for the first time since the worst anti-Chinese riots in two decades broke out recently, Beijing is hard at work waging its own propaganda war.
Its new target in addition to the 'Dalai clique': foreign media that put out 'distorted reports' on the unrest, which according to Beijing has killed at least 22 people.
In recent days, state-run media here have run lengthy stories alleging inaccurate use of images or footage by Western media outfits, including CNN and BBC.
'Some Western media neglected the facts and presented distorted reporting for more than 10 days,' the official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary on Monday.
These stories, complete with screen shots of the offending media, appear to have been based on a YouTube amateur video accusing the Western media of 'purposely' trying to 'slander China' which has been circulating online since last week.
While China levels these criticisms at the Western media, questions are being raised over its initial news blackout and what followed: the repeated airing of a one-sided account on state television, accusing the Dalai Lama's 'clique' of plotting the unrest.
The clip features emotive interviews with victims, images of charred shops and bodies, and graphic footage of Tibetans rioting, but nothing on the massive Chinese paramilitary crackdown.
Playing to a domestic audience, Beijing's media offensive taps into a deep well of popular Chinese nationalism which has seen CNN getting hate calls and threats in recent days.
The perceived smear campaign by the Western media has spurred Chinese netizens to post online messages like one by 'cnn-still-lying' yesterday: 'What you can find in Western media? Magnificent trash and outrageous lies!'
To prove its case, Xinhua on Monday said that private German broadcaster RTL TV had apologised in a statement for mismatching a March 17 photo of clashes between pro-Tibet protesters and police in Nepal with a caption saying Chinese police were cracking down on Tibetans in Lhasa.
Refuting all claims of distorted coverage, the CNN, which was accused of deliberately cropping stone- throwing rioters out of a picture that showed army trucks rumbling into Lhasa, said in a statement it had trimmed the image purely for technical reasons and had captioned it accurately.
Analysts said the errors by Western media outfits were probably due to sloppiness, and by talking them up, Beijing could be trying to deflect international criticism of its crackdown in Tibet.
Media expert Xiao Qiang, adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said: 'The errors can hardly be interpreted as a conspiracy or conscious effort. The 'allegations' are an over-reaction to exaggerate such errors.'
Even-handed in his take, journalism professor Yu Guoming, of Renmin University in Beijing, said basic editorial errors would not be tolerated anywhere, but the Chinese should also 'listen patiently' to the critical views put out by the Western media.
Despite its pledges to open up to foreign media ahead of the Olympics, Beijing locked down and flushed foreign journalists out of Tibet, where violence erupted on March 14, and ethnic Tibetan areas in Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai where a wave of protests broke out last week.
Acting on a promise Premier Wen Jiabao made last week, Beijing today took 13 foreign journalists on a three-day reporting trip to Lhasa. But the move has sparked cries of unfairness among journalists not selected to go.
At a routine press conference yesterday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang faced a barrage of questions on that and obstacles put in foreign journalists' way in reporting the Tibet unrest.
A touch exasperated, he defended the lockdown by saying that reporters were made to leave trouble spots for security reasons and for their own safety.
But one reporter rebutted: Could those areas have been more dangerous than Iraq or Afghanistan?
simcy@sph.com.sg
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