Losing the media battle

The past couple of weeks week have seen a couple of incidents that do not reflect well on the Western media. During the early stages of the National People's Congress, Zhao Baige, vice-minister at the state population and family planning commission, was quoted as saying the one child policy was up for review.

Western media on both sides of the Atlantic jumped on the story. At the time commented to a friend I know working at the Guardian's office in Beijing, that the story lacked any grounding in hard fact. Later, it appeared this assessment had been correct, as China announced it would not renew the policy for a decade. Of course, Western media had to cover the story in light of their previous copy, which had suggested there might be a change. This resulted in much duplication of statistics and, in short, was a bit of a waste of time.

There is, however, a larger issue at stake here. The Guardian's story states that the confusion was the result of inter-party squabbling, which may well be the case. What is interesting is how the government later used this difference in opinion in a China Daily column. The passage cites the difference in views as evidence of the democratic nature of the NPC. This displays an uncanny knack for understanding how the media can be manipulated and how it might be used to influence others.

Which brings us to the front page of China Daily this weekend: Riot reports show media bias in West. The main thrust of the article is that pictures distributed across Western media that purported to show Chinese police violently quelling Tibetan rioters were actually taken in Nepal. It includes the classic quote: "The pictures illustrate how the news can be manipulated."

Despite the obvious irony here, the pictures did carry incorrect captions. They should serve as a warning for the West to avoid the temptation to speculate without hard evidence. The commodification of news has led agencies to take increasingly greater risks in an effort to be first, or to carry exclusive content. This was an example of that tendency getting out of hand. With such a dearth of definitive material on the current situation in Tibet, there is a temptation to satisfy consumers' demand without checking the facts as thoroughly they should be.

However, in the West's defence - what is one to do when China has banned all reporters from entering Tibet (apart from the Economist's correspondent who was later ejected)? Such restrictions contradict the country's pledge to allow journalists to report freely over the nine month period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Foreign Correspondents Club of China is currently collecting reports from journalists encountering restrictions in the region.

The West is also criticized for ignoring the victimization of Chinese in Lhasa and the surrounding regions. This could well be a fair point, but when reporters are unable to confirm anything this argument cannot be sustained. It is too easy to make the assumption that the restrictions are there because there is something to hide. To then suggest the news is being manipulated is profoundly hypocritical.

Those pictures that have trickled out of Tibet invariably show acts of violence by Tibetans on Chinese citizens. Such acts have undoubtedly occurred, but when the flow of information is so restricted, we must ask whether there are other photographs out there that are yet, if ever, to see the light of day. I can only hope that when the restrictions are lifted, as they surely must be, the journalists who attempt to find the truth can still find someone who is prepared to tell it to them.