Commentary: Biased media reports reveal credibility crisis

Source: Xinhua | 03-26-2008 18:12

BEIJING, March 26 (Xinhua) -- Punch in Rediff.com, India's leading portal, and a Tibetan woman can be seen elaborating on the Lhasa riot in Mandarin, regrettably a language understood by about 20 percent of the world's population.

The woman, interviewed by China's Central Television shortly after the March 14 riot, can be seen accusing the rioters of sabotage. "They destroyed our good life, now that our children cannot go to school and we ourselves can no more get to work."

The English subtitles that appear on the video, provided by what was promoted as "the best multimedia news corporation in south Asia", the Asian News International (ANI), however, reads: "All the Tibetan people have gathered together yesterday on the street and the military men fired some tear gas, some poisonous ... and arrested about 10 or 20 people."

N-TV, headquartered in Germany, used TV footage showing police with captured protestors in a report on the Tibet riots. The footage had been shot in Nepal, the police were Nepalese.

In one of the most impudent efforts ever to cheat the audience,the New Delhi-based ANI has deliberately covered the original sound bite and put in something else, as if the whole world could be fooled so easily.

Ironically, however, it hasn't forgotten all about its professional ethics: The attribute reads "Courtesy: CCTV".

While people across the globe are anxious to find out the truth about the riots in Lhasa and other Tibetan communities in western China, some media corporations have deviated from the basic principles of journalism, deliberately or indeliberately, by dubbing videos with fake sound bites, putting up photos with misleading captions and making groundless accusations of the Chinese government.