All hail ITV reporter John Ray, as he becomes the news in Beijing
I'm woefully underwhelmed with the article on the Tibet protest in Beijing.
- To cover it was questionable to start with: it just needs a dozen foreigners who'd gone to Beijing with an agenda, and ITV fixes it for them to complete all their ambitions. Well done ITV. Something like 20 milion people in Beijing at this time, and you wanted to publicise the activities of 0.00006% of them. You made that editorial choice only because it fitted to your own agenda too.
- Your report suggests you've seen a Chinese anti-democratic, freedom-repressing activity yes-here-you've-seen-it-here-on-ITV. I have two questions:
- Is the UK the bastion of democratic values? You have to have police permission in UK for a protest, protests are illegal altogether in certain places, and the police will be heavy-handed at certain times.
- Are you a kind of people who respect laws of the countries you visit, or do you only obey UK laws when you're in another country?
- And the arrested reporter, sticking his head out of the police van shouting the odds: had he forgotten that police in Beijing tend to speak Chinese? He has lived in Beijing (apparently) since 2006, but he hadn't learned to say "I am a journalist" in Chinese and hadn't remembered that Chinese people speak Chinese. So that's an achievement, isn't it. Or maybe he was just acting-up for his TV news article, bless him. What do they say when reports "become the news" instead of "reporting the news"? Personally, I think the police officer showed great restraint. I think I'd have punched his lights out.
- And then a prediction about the future, as certain as from a fortune-teller in her caravan: the Chinese nationals will be detained without trial till the end of the Olympics, and the foreigners will be deported. (It's a pity we didn't hear him in Iraq, predicting that 800,000 people would die as a result of an invasion by Britain and the USA, against international law and every international security organisation.) But anyway, that's all so different than the way we do things in the UK, isn't it? Not! Did I miss the way we have same-day trials in the UK? We'd never have a trial 10 days after an arrest, would we? Oh no, we don't even have to charge people for 40 days!!! And British and Europeans never arrest foreigners caught breaking the law and deport them immediately, do they? Oh no.
- And then let's talk about Tibet itself, since that was the subject of the protest. You nicely reported unrest in Tibet when it happened, didn't you. You assumed Senegalese and Tibetan police were Chinese police and army. And then there's the real economic benefits China has brought to Tibet, which you actually perverted to some kind of mal-activity. I ask you - what's the point in using ITV's funds to go abroad? Why not just write the story you want from London, and save your company a lot of money? There's just no point in being on the ground, since you're not hampered by any desire to collect facts.
posted by Tsuchan at 10:03 pm
1 Comments:
Complaint made to Ofcom:
John Ray's report (with other ITN journalists) about an anti-Tibet protest in China failed in the three matters of due impartiality, due accuracy and undue prominence of views and opinions covered under Section 5 of the broadcasting code.
1) Undue Prominence of Views and Opinions
- The report told us what would happen to the protesters (foreigners would be immediately deported, Chinese nationals would be detained until without trial until after the Olympics. No evidence was presented to substantiate these claims.
- John Ray was a journalist who was happy to "become the news". After his arrest, he stuck his head out of the window of the police van and shouted the odds - in English. The ITV web site says he has been in Beijing since 2006. In that time it's reasonable to expect he would know that Chinese policemen tend to speak Chinese, and even that he would be able to say "I am a journalist" in Chinese. In fact he was just acting a story for his cameras. He wasn't reporting the news, he was happily making the news for the publicity of himself and his news organisation.
2) Impartiality
- There are about 20 million people in Beijing at the present time, and there seemed to be about a dozen of them involved in this protest. That would be 0.00006% of the population. I question the impartiality of covering this story at all - they had an agenda to fill, which coincided with the protesters' agenda.
- Nothing in the news article summarised the protest about Tibet. The China/Tibet story is something comparable to the Northern Ireland.
- The agenda of the ITN news crew was to show that China oppresses protesters. They showed nothing that doesn't happen in the UK. Protesters in the UK have to get permission from the police to stage a protest; they face arrest if they protest in "the wrong place" or at "the wrong time". They may be detained under the Mental Health Act, or under the Terrorism Act, or under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act.
3) Accuracy
- The report presented the prediciton of Chinese nationals being detained without trial until after the Olympics. The Olympics finishes in 10 days, and the UK doesn't tend to hold trials within 10 days. If they meant to say something else I don't know - you and I do not have their powers of clairvoyance. But there was an implied comparison that trials are always held within 10 days in UK.
- The report presented the prediction of foreigners being immediately deported, with the implication that foreigners caught breaking the law in other countries are not deported. That is inaccurate.
- The police van had a window for John Ray to open and stick his head out. If that had been in the UK, the windows would have been barred, probably blackened. The van would likely have been something akin to a mobile police cell. It suggests that China is not geared-up for violence in the way the UK is.
I submit this complaint for action and response.
Thank you for your help.
Best regards
- andi ye
Post a Comment
<< Home