CN Reviews Mind the Gap Wednesday: The Five Minute News That Matter
Talk about Tibet and Taiwan, as well as anything political, is off-limits to your fellow co-blogger — voluntarily, as politics and religion set (or could potentially set) more people off than anything. (It’s more about not making anyone ballistic than “creating a harmonious society”, as is the officialspeak here.) The bits and bobs of news we’ve been hearing lately, however, show that we’re probably a bit more informed about what happens outside our borders than — could it be — fellow folks State-side…?
No joke: the evening Network News Broadcast, available to the masses by both TV and radio every evening at 7 PM, contains 25 minutes of domestic officialspeak. In the last 5 minutes, however, you get the 5 minutes of news that matter. The co-hosts are seen less during the last 5 minutes: instead, seen more often are the likes of Bush, Her Majesty, and even planets outside our own Terra. Indeed, the final 5 minutes of news on China’s Central Television takes a look at the world outside mainland China. And sometimes, we get a quick report or two about new breakthroughs in technology, the discovery of a new planet, or maybe a yell-a-thon from Japan (yes, they do have that).
By contrast, when I was in San Francisco in 2006, I was treated to news on CNN about everything inside the US — a bit of Israel — and then, nothing. We’re not talking about the small bits and bobs like Switzerland Invents New Milka Chocolate Ad Slogan or North Korea Issues New Stamps To Commemorate National Day. Nope, we’re talking about big nations like China, India, or bigger parts of the world like Europe and Australia. I was shocked to see no coverage about China! (No surprise: I switched the TV off and got my updates from the Web instead.)
Come to think of it, this is supposed to be America, where “freedom of the press” and “news freedom” are common currency. We folks in China believe that the Americans should come to understand the World better, as they are more “free”. Instead, I was given the impression that the US is a country that locks itself inside its own frontiers, more than anything else — if that 15-minute report on CNN USA told me anything.
When people start locking themselves in, they start refusing different viewpoints — as in viewpoints of folks from other places or those with different opinions. This is nothing new to China: a self-locked China as late as the 1970s saw the nation way behind the Western World. No Jianwai SOHO then; nope, if you lock yourself in, you can’t move ahead.
This may seem a paradox indeed; folks in the Western world, often given to the fact that the Chinese are a “locked-in nation”, tend to have the misconception that China could care less about the outside World. In fact, international headliners are all the rage on Chinese media. Even the mouthpiece People’s Daily carry news about what’s happening outside national frontiers.
It’s time move beyond national frontiers and out into that great big World out there.
2 Responses to “CN Reviews Mind the Gap Wednesday: The Five Minute News That Matter”
Thanks for the thinly-veiled insult towards American media and Americans in general, David, especially when you dress it up as a “Mind the Gap” post. The insinuations were irresponsible at best, reckless at worst.
Before I address you in-depth, I want to point out the absurdity of you pronouncing that “anything political” is “off-limits” to you right before you venture into the recent controversies surrounding Western media and their coverage of the Tibet issue…which has become one of the biggest political issue du jour.
First of all, let me remind you that you only watched CNN for 15 minutes, by your own admission. FIFTEEN MINUTES.
CNN is a 24 hour news channel. Basically, it broadcasts news and news-related programming around the clock. No Lost, no Heroes, no Desperate Housewives, no Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. To be sure, 24 hours is not enough to cover everything that happens in this “great big World,” but hey, I’d wager it is still more than 30 minutes, much less five.
So, you watched 15 minutes and saw a bunch of domestic US news and a bit of Israel. How is that significantly different from the first 25 minutes of domestic news you get on Network News Broadcast?
Scratch that, how is it that you’re passing judgement on all of CNN on the basis of 15 random minutes while you were in San Francisco sometime in 2006? Have you ever visited CNN.com? Have you noted that they have a U.S. edition (which is organized to feature more domestic news) and an International edition (that is organized to present news from all over the world)? Have you ever seen the various CNN channels that are broadcast in different parts of the world (the CNN in the United States is different than that in, say, Hong Kong)?
Second, just how surprised are you that CNN in the United States would, well, spend a lot more time covering local/domestic news that probably matters more to the local population than foreign news that doesn’t really affect their daily lives? Have you ever noticed that this is the case for every country? People naturally care more about what is within geographically proximity to them.
Like all media, especially INDEPENDENT MEDIA that are private businesses, CNN will cater to what the audience is interested in. That’s how they stay relevant and remain in business. In the domestic US, the viewers may be more interested in domestic news (big surprise). Elsewhere, the programming content may differ in accordance to the viewership there. CNN editors will certainly decide what news from elsewhere in the world may be interesting enough to its viewers to warrant broadcasting it.
Maybe there wasn’t anything particularly interesting enough to report about China during those 15 minutes on that one day you were in the United States watching CNN. Sorry.
But you should’ve seen the storm of news coverage CNN and other domestic US media gave China last year in 2007 over dangerous products coming out of China. Likewise, China gets plenty of CNN love right now over the recent Tibet issue and the impending Olympic Games (torch relay, anyone?).
I will be blunt here because it necessary: You’ve completely misunderstood or are misrepresenting what “freedom of the press” and “news freedom” means. I seriously hope you’re not suggesting that there is some deliberate effort to not provide news coverage of China.
I agree that Americans should understand the world better, as it has become popular in recent years to lambast Americans for being so internationally ignorant. However, you’re mistaken in believing that Americans “should” understand the world more simply because they are more “free.” Americans, fortunately, have free access to all information about almost anything in the world, including China. They are definitely free in that regard. However, freedom also means Americans are free to simply not care about China or any other part of the world. Freedom does not imply awareness, it implies choice. Americans have the choice to only give two shits about their neck of the world or become the next pundit on China’s emergence as a major global economic and political power. That’s what “FREE” means.
In contrast to China, Chinese people are ALSO “free” to only care about what’s around them OR seek out information and learn about the rest of the world. Unfortunately, and unlike Americans, the Chinese do not enjoy as much freedom of information. This, you and I both know intimately.
You may have the impression that Americans “lock themselves” in their own country. It may even be warranted because we do have 300+ million people and the vast majority of them aren’t too interested in the rest of the world that is so far away from home. However, that is a choice made on the individual level, not some concerted effort of the United States government to isolate its citizenry.
Allow me to ask you: how much of China’s 1.3+ billion people are meaningfully aware and/or interested in the news outside of China, much less their particular town/city/province? How much of China’s 900+ million rural population are up-to-date with what’s going on in the United States, the European states, the land-down-under, or even Africa (where China has invested so heavily in recent years)?
The ignorance of the Chinese does not excuse the ignorance of Americans, especially in this increasingly globalized world we all live in. However, I’m trying to impart upon you a little perspective. As a Swiss-Chinese, I honestly expected something far more astute. Then again, I’m reminded that Europeans love lodging this insult against Americans all the time too.
So I suppose the irony is limited to the latter half of your ethno-national identity, Chinese. Have you taken a look a look at the hyper-nationlistic drivel that so many Chinese netizens are spouting off lately over the Western media controversy? It reminds me of the legion of red-neck Americans proclaiming “God Bless America!” as they fire off a round and throw back a beer. The sheer overwhelming ignorance mated with deft fingers and vocal-chords strung hoarse on BOTH sides is enough to prove just how incredibly obtuse we collectivel are as a species.
By what rationale, David, are you seriously advancing that the Chinese people are “oh-so-enthusiastic” about the outside world unlike those “locked-in” Americans? Can you proffer any sociological or anthropological explanations for such phenomenon?
Yes, China Daily loves sharing the latest crime and murder statistics for the United States, fostering some widespread notion amongst the average Chinese citizen to think the United States is some horrifyingly dangerous place. Now that China’s ascendency as a world-power is a given, how about the CCP release some reliable statistics so the American and European media can cover it and help its citizens “better understand” China?
It makes you wonder when the best defense of China’s policies with regards to the Tibet issue comes from Westerners instead of China Daily and XinHua, who both certainly tried their best to fulfil their patriotic duty of towing the party line. Before you start using mottos like “freedom of the press” to insult Americans, it might be a bit wise to move past Chinese media’s inclusion of news from the outside world and analyze just what sort of domestic news they’re covering relative to, I dunno, maybe CNN. Have you ever wondered how more “outside” news allows LESS reporting of “inside news?”
The truth that has become so annoyingly obvious with the recent Tibet and Western Media controversy is just how “locked in” many “westerners” AND “Chinese” are. The painful truth is that this is all so completely NORMAL of society. Americans, like other westerners, are surely guilty of being idiots when they’re being idiotic. They deserve to be called out for their biases and ignorance. The fact that Chinese people are making the criticisms, no matter how irrelevant, is still nonetheless amusingly IRONIC.
It doesn’t matter that the America is a champion of free speech and freedom of the press or even the “marketplace of ideas” concept. There are still lots of biased, prejudiced, blatantly ignorant low-brows there. We can only hope the former will help reduce the latter.
Next time you’re in America, David, feel free to pick up a newspaper and look for the “World” section. If you’re watching CNN, try leaving it on for more than 15 minutes, or tune in at another time. Go online and see if you can browse all the Chinese news portals and websites you can think of. Then, if you still have any nagging suspicious about freedom and the accessibility of different viewpoints and opinions, ask yourself why Wikipedia, Blogspot, Xanga, etc. was blocked or is still blocked in China for so long.
References avalable upon request.
Well, looks like Kai got here before me (well said) and jumped all over what I was going to, and more. I’m a Brit so wouldn’t comment so much about America and Americans - but it all mostly holds true for the UK and BBC and other domestic news programs. BBC world is a different matter though.
“In the last 5 minutes, however, you get the 5 minutes of news that matter” - wow, 5 minutes of worldly education. That’s about right - but how many people watching it actually cared or believed it? They were mostly still numb and with the hairs on the back of their neck standing up from the previous 25 minutes of political erotica.