The Danger of One Voice from Mainstream Media
Dec. 20, 2020 | By Wen Sirui
(Minghui.org) Something is wrong in this society. When covering an event, the majority of the mainstream media in the U.S. would either praise or denounce the persons involved in the event instead of reporting on the various aspects of what is really going on. Almost all news media have the same concerted voice – very often without bothering to verify the primary source.
One example is the U.S. general election fraud. With hearings taking place in swing states and a large amount of solid evidence from sworn affidavits, there is virtually no mainstream media covering that.
Lie and Fact from the Same Video Footage
When news media and social media joined forces to spread misleading information, finding facts can be difficult, although not impossible. To some degree, this has become a test of our honesty and caliber.
J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Porter books, posted a tweet on in July 2017, accusing U.S. President Trump of ignoring Montgomery Veer, a three-year-old handicapped boy who reached out to the President for a hand shake. Given Rowling’s fame, the post along with a short video went viral and many people joined her to condemn Trump.
The boy’s mother, Marjorie Kelly Weer, wrote in a post on Facebook after reading Rowling’s tweet. She explained that Rowling had misinterpreted the situation. “If someone can please get a message to JK Rowling: Trump didn’t snub my son & Monty wasn’t even trying to shake his hand,” she wrote, adding that Monty didn’t much like shaking hands.
“The raw video footage showed that Mr. Trump had crouched down to shake the boy’s hand. He appeared to have gently touched the child’s left elbow, as the boy lifted his clenched left hand,” reported New York Times on August 1, 2017, in an article titled “J.K. Rowling Apologizes for Anti-Trump Tweets (but Not to Trump).”
This tells us that although knowing information helps us learn facts, knowing partial information could strengthen our established bias. When media neglected its mission of providing factual information and instead started to manipulate public opinions with selective reporting, it could lead to dire consequences.
Above was one of the many false accusations against Trump in the past four years. The sheer number and methods employed in the defamation are beyond imagination. For example, after nearly two years, Russian investigation did not find Trump had wrongdoings.
Such a list continues. In June 2018, many news media claimed a crying little Honduran girl had been separated from her family, and used that to attack the Trump administration’s immigration law. The girl’s father later clarified it was untrue since the girl had never been separated.
Another example was the accusation that Trump’s administration had detained children in cages at the border facilities. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) deputy commissioner testified that the cages were built during the Obama era in 2014 for illegal immigrants.
Although these facts were later straightened out, the damage had already been done. As a result, misled by the news media, many people called Trump a dictator and racist. “A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” said Vladimir Lenin, founder of Soviet Union. How far are we from that?
In contrast, had something bad happened to a Democrat, a double standard would be applied. Although no evidence was found against Trump, news media continued to call the Russia accusation a Trump scandal. After New York Post reported Hunter Biden’s laptop with concrete facts and involvement from FBI, however, news media either ignored it or dismissed it.
It is important to reflect on this, understanding where we are and what it means. The truth is, when we fail to protect legitimate rights of others and continue to expand the net of lies and defamation, every one would become victims one day including ourselves.
Role of Fourth Estate
Because of its influence, news media is often referred to as the Fourth Estate. One example is the Watergate Scandal that occurred to U.S. President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974. Independent investigation by two journalists revealed what happened, forcing Nixon to resign. As a testimony for the press freedom and judicial independence, it set up a good example for modern society. But the situation changed drastically in the 1990s.
Despite the notorious human rights record of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), U.S. banks and businesses invested in China for profits. JP Morgan Chase, an “old friend” of the CCP, became the first American Bank acting as an agent of the Bank of China in the U.S. in 1973, six years before formal diplomatic relations were established between the two countries.
“The large Wall Street banks and other large American-in-name-only companies, were more interested in making as much money as they could by trading with a mortal enemy, then in abiding by American laws and American standards and upholding American values,” explained Curtis Ellis, policy director from America First Policies, “I’m sure if you dug around and looked around, you’d find that JP Morgan wasn’t alone in that kind of practice.”
One year after establishing diplomatic relations, the U.S. granted most favored nation (MFN) status to China. Renewed on a yearly basis, the MFN status was dependent on the human rights situation in China. This proved to be effective, as China would release some detained dissidents every year before the renewal. This connection between human rights and the economy also helped the U.S. to defend Western values from communism.
Nonetheless, the U.S. government in general had an appeasement policy towards the CCP, hoping a more developed China would lead to democracy. That is why the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, suppression in Tibet, and the persecution of Falun Gong since 1999 were largely ignored.
To divert Western society’s attention to human rights issues in China, former CCP leader Jiang Zemin planned to enter the WTO and improve China’s relationship with the free world. Michael Pillsbury, director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, described how the CCP influenced the American officials through a multi-thronged approach in his book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.
According to defector Ms. Lee (pseudo name), “China had made false claims from 1995 to 2000 to persuade Congress to grant China permanent normal trade relations and pave its way into the WTO. Ms. Lee revealed that China’s leaders’ strategy was to leave nothing to chance by aiding those who favored the vote, and suppressing information about their mercantilist economic strategy,” the book wrote, “They launched a program of propaganda and espionage that was more sophisticated than anyone in the U.S. intelligence community suspected.”
In the end, then president Bill Clinton killed a condition that Congress proposed for China to enter the WTO, that is, releasing 2,000 – 3,000 detained prisoners of conscience (most of the prisoners of conscience at the time were Falun Gong practitioners.) In the end, Clinton signed into law in October 2000 to grant China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status, allowing China to be admitted to the WTO in December 2001.
From Misconception to Misinformation
French prophet Nostradamus in the 16th century had predicted that in July 1999, a great King of Terror would come and Mars (Marx) would rule the world claiming to give people a happy life. That year, the CCP began to suppress Falun Gong and the persecution has lasted since then, making it the biggest religious persecution in China.
Part of the issue was a misjudgment of the CCP from the beginning. Speaking before an elite audience in Washington in March 2000, then U.S. President Bill Clinton expected increased freedom in China as “liberty will be spread by cell phone and cable modem.” “Now there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet,” he declared, “Good luck! That’s sort of like trying to nail jello to the wall.” Within several years, however, the CCP’s Great Firewall became the world’s most sophisticated system for controlling and surveilling the web.
News media also played a critical role in this process. “Since the 1960s, U.S. policymakers have been led to believe that China is a backward nation, not militarily active, and certainly not focused on the United States as a military threat. This was the message that Beijing’s leaders conveyed to Westerners to great effect,” wrote Pillsbury in his book, “In 1999, Patrick Tyler, the Beijing bureau chief for the New York Times, reported the following: ‘Today the evidence suggests that while China is working to master state-of-the-art technologies in its laboratories, it has little expertise and few resources to build the industrial base necessary to become a modern military power.’”
[Read more in PDF]
Dec. 20, 2020 | By Wen Sirui
(Minghui.org) Something is wrong in this society. When covering an event, the majority of the mainstream media in the U.S. would either praise or denounce the persons involved in the event instead of reporting on the various aspects of what is really going on. Almost all news media have the same concerted voice – very often without bothering to verify the primary source.
One example is the U.S. general election fraud. With hearings taking place in swing states and a large amount of solid evidence from sworn affidavits, there is virtually no mainstream media covering that.
Lie and Fact from the Same Video Footage
When news media and social media joined forces to spread misleading information, finding facts can be difficult, although not impossible. To some degree, this has become a test of our honesty and caliber.
J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Porter books, posted a tweet on in July 2017, accusing U.S. President Trump of ignoring Montgomery Veer, a three-year-old handicapped boy who reached out to the President for a hand shake. Given Rowling’s fame, the post along with a short video went viral and many people joined her to condemn Trump.
The boy’s mother, Marjorie Kelly Weer, wrote in a post on Facebook after reading Rowling’s tweet. She explained that Rowling had misinterpreted the situation. “If someone can please get a message to JK Rowling: Trump didn’t snub my son & Monty wasn’t even trying to shake his hand,” she wrote, adding that Monty didn’t much like shaking hands.
“The raw video footage showed that Mr. Trump had crouched down to shake the boy’s hand. He appeared to have gently touched the child’s left elbow, as the boy lifted his clenched left hand,” reported New York Times on August 1, 2017, in an article titled “J.K. Rowling Apologizes for Anti-Trump Tweets (but Not to Trump).”
This tells us that although knowing information helps us learn facts, knowing partial information could strengthen our established bias. When media neglected its mission of providing factual information and instead started to manipulate public opinions with selective reporting, it could lead to dire consequences.
Above was one of the many false accusations against Trump in the past four years. The sheer number and methods employed in the defamation are beyond imagination. For example, after nearly two years, Russian investigation did not find Trump had wrongdoings.
Such a list continues. In June 2018, many news media claimed a crying little Honduran girl had been separated from her family, and used that to attack the Trump administration’s immigration law. The girl’s father later clarified it was untrue since the girl had never been separated.
Another example was the accusation that Trump’s administration had detained children in cages at the border facilities. A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) deputy commissioner testified that the cages were built during the Obama era in 2014 for illegal immigrants.
Although these facts were later straightened out, the damage had already been done. As a result, misled by the news media, many people called Trump a dictator and racist. “A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” said Vladimir Lenin, founder of Soviet Union. How far are we from that?
In contrast, had something bad happened to a Democrat, a double standard would be applied. Although no evidence was found against Trump, news media continued to call the Russia accusation a Trump scandal. After New York Post reported Hunter Biden’s laptop with concrete facts and involvement from FBI, however, news media either ignored it or dismissed it.
It is important to reflect on this, understanding where we are and what it means. The truth is, when we fail to protect legitimate rights of others and continue to expand the net of lies and defamation, every one would become victims one day including ourselves.
Role of Fourth Estate
Because of its influence, news media is often referred to as the Fourth Estate. One example is the Watergate Scandal that occurred to U.S. President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974. Independent investigation by two journalists revealed what happened, forcing Nixon to resign. As a testimony for the press freedom and judicial independence, it set up a good example for modern society. But the situation changed drastically in the 1990s.
Despite the notorious human rights record of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), U.S. banks and businesses invested in China for profits. JP Morgan Chase, an “old friend” of the CCP, became the first American Bank acting as an agent of the Bank of China in the U.S. in 1973, six years before formal diplomatic relations were established between the two countries.
“The large Wall Street banks and other large American-in-name-only companies, were more interested in making as much money as they could by trading with a mortal enemy, then in abiding by American laws and American standards and upholding American values,” explained Curtis Ellis, policy director from America First Policies, “I’m sure if you dug around and looked around, you’d find that JP Morgan wasn’t alone in that kind of practice.”
One year after establishing diplomatic relations, the U.S. granted most favored nation (MFN) status to China. Renewed on a yearly basis, the MFN status was dependent on the human rights situation in China. This proved to be effective, as China would release some detained dissidents every year before the renewal. This connection between human rights and the economy also helped the U.S. to defend Western values from communism.
Nonetheless, the U.S. government in general had an appeasement policy towards the CCP, hoping a more developed China would lead to democracy. That is why the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, suppression in Tibet, and the persecution of Falun Gong since 1999 were largely ignored.
To divert Western society’s attention to human rights issues in China, former CCP leader Jiang Zemin planned to enter the WTO and improve China’s relationship with the free world. Michael Pillsbury, director of the Center on Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, described how the CCP influenced the American officials through a multi-thronged approach in his book The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.
According to defector Ms. Lee (pseudo name), “China had made false claims from 1995 to 2000 to persuade Congress to grant China permanent normal trade relations and pave its way into the WTO. Ms. Lee revealed that China’s leaders’ strategy was to leave nothing to chance by aiding those who favored the vote, and suppressing information about their mercantilist economic strategy,” the book wrote, “They launched a program of propaganda and espionage that was more sophisticated than anyone in the U.S. intelligence community suspected.”
In the end, then president Bill Clinton killed a condition that Congress proposed for China to enter the WTO, that is, releasing 2,000 – 3,000 detained prisoners of conscience (most of the prisoners of conscience at the time were Falun Gong practitioners.) In the end, Clinton signed into law in October 2000 to grant China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status, allowing China to be admitted to the WTO in December 2001.
From Misconception to Misinformation
French prophet Nostradamus in the 16th century had predicted that in July 1999, a great King of Terror would come and Mars (Marx) would rule the world claiming to give people a happy life. That year, the CCP began to suppress Falun Gong and the persecution has lasted since then, making it the biggest religious persecution in China.
Part of the issue was a misjudgment of the CCP from the beginning. Speaking before an elite audience in Washington in March 2000, then U.S. President Bill Clinton expected increased freedom in China as “liberty will be spread by cell phone and cable modem.” “Now there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet,” he declared, “Good luck! That’s sort of like trying to nail jello to the wall.” Within several years, however, the CCP’s Great Firewall became the world’s most sophisticated system for controlling and surveilling the web.
News media also played a critical role in this process. “Since the 1960s, U.S. policymakers have been led to believe that China is a backward nation, not militarily active, and certainly not focused on the United States as a military threat. This was the message that Beijing’s leaders conveyed to Westerners to great effect,” wrote Pillsbury in his book, “In 1999, Patrick Tyler, the Beijing bureau chief for the New York Times, reported the following: ‘Today the evidence suggests that while China is working to master state-of-the-art technologies in its laboratories, it has little expertise and few resources to build the industrial base necessary to become a modern military power.’”
[Read more in PDF]