倍可親

美媒監察組織批《紐約時報》患上「抨擊中國綜合征」

作者:light12  於 2021-1-31 21:26 發表於 最熱鬧的華人社交網路--貝殼村

通用分類:網路文摘

美媒監察組織批《紐約時報》患上「抨擊中國綜合征」


新冠疫情暴發以來,中國已成功控制住疫情。但在武漢「封城」一周年的節骨眼上,包括《紐約時報》在內,不少自詡獨立、客觀和公正的西方媒體,卻紛紛發布各種「陰陽怪氣」、「春秋筆法」專題報道。

對此,美國媒體批評和監察組織「FAIR.org」編輯吉姆·諾雷卡斯(Jim Naureckas)當地時間1月29日發表一篇題為《紐約時報的「(抨擊)中國綜合征」》的評論,拆穿了《紐約時報》歪曲中國疫情應對和成果所使用的伎倆,並直言這家報紙和特朗普一樣,「知道將中國列為可怕威脅后的政治宣傳價值」。

例如,《紐約時報》近期報道中曾暗示中國「宣傳疫情處置能力高於美國」,但諾雷卡斯列出數據后指出,現實情況也確實如此。

另一篇報道中,《紐約時報》又在頭版通過照片渲染中國香港疫情的恐怖程度,但諾雷卡斯又問道:「為什麼要將地球另一端,規模相對較小的疫情當成頭版新聞?」

FAIR.org評論文章《紐約時報的「(抨擊)中國綜合征」》

其實,類似的「中國綜合征」不僅僅只出現在西方媒體關於中國疫情的報道中,也不僅僅只存在於《紐約時報》一家西方媒體。

「客觀來說,中國的疫情應對確實遠遠好於美國」

本篇評論文章的開頭,諾雷卡斯就向讀者提問:若在平行時空中,美國在兩個月內控制住了新冠病毒,而中國仍在與之鬥爭,一年之後,數十萬人死亡。此時,中國一份重要報紙發表了一篇文章,論述美國在新冠肺炎大流行中「試圖掩蓋其失誤」。

「你會對這種宣傳渠道,以及那些為了轉移人們對自己國家失敗的注意力而進行所謂的透明努力的新聞調查有多大的蔑視呢?」諾雷卡斯質問道。

而這,正是《紐約時報》如今在做的事情。諾雷卡斯提到了《紐約時報》1月10日宣稱「中國掩蓋疫情應對失誤」的報道,並對其中一段文字進行分析。

《紐約時報》在那篇文章中這麼寫道:「過去一年的大部分時間裡,中國一直在試圖將疫情描述為共產黨領導下一場無可爭議的勝利。官方新聞媒體在很大程度上忽略了政府的失誤,並將中國的應對描述為其體制優越性的證明,尤其是與美國和其他民主國家相比,後者仍在努力遏制疫情的肆虐。」

諾雷卡斯批評說,這是一段「令人困惑」的文字,因為《紐約時報》在此暗示,中國是在宣傳自己的疫情相比於美國,「是一場無可爭議的勝利。」

但事實也確實如此。諾雷卡斯在文中列出一系列數據:中國有14億人口,確診病例不到9萬例,而美國有3.3億人口,到目前為止已經有超過2500萬例病例。中國有不到5000名新冠死亡病例,而美國的這一數字為43.3萬人。2020年,中國GDP增長2.3%,美國萎縮2.5%。

他寫道:「鑒於這些現實情況,難怪中國認為自己應對新冠肺炎的能力遠遠好於美國——因為客觀地說,確實如此。」

《紐約時報》報道中宣稱中國應對新冠疫情初期有失誤,給出的依據是武漢「封城」之前,共有17人死於新冠肺炎。但諾雷斯卡再次指出,僅在美國面積最小州之一的新罕布希爾,1月28日當天就有16人死於新冠肺炎。

此外,諾雷卡斯還戳穿了《紐約時報》的伎倆,報道中曾將「美國和其他民主國家」列為中國比較的國家,但他認為這是一種「轉移人們注意力的方式」。美國和許多盟友一樣,遭受疫情衝擊,但也有不少發達國家情況相對較好,因此這並非政治體制的問題,而是應對新冠疫情認真與否的問題。

「《紐約時報》和特朗普一樣,知道將中國列為威脅的宣傳價值」

《紐約時報》關於中國疫情的報道和評論文章中,還有很多「奇文」。例如,該報今年1月24日刊發美國美國對外關係委員會全球衛生高級研究員黃嚴忠一篇題為《中國在抗擊新冠疫情方面是否做得太好了?》的文章,「角度刁鑽」地批評了中國在全球新冠疫情中的角色。

《紐約時報》刊發的黃嚴忠「奇文」:《中國在抗擊新冠疫情方面是否做得太好了?》

例如,黃嚴忠文中提到的一個所謂論點是,中國的防疫做得太好,以至於讓部分人似乎因為錯誤的安全感,不願接種疫苗。他援引調查機構益索普(Ipsos)針對15個國家的調查數據,稱大約有80%的中國受訪者表示願意接種疫苗,不願意接種的人中有70%提到了疫苗的副作用。還有約32%對接種猶豫不決的中國受訪者表示,他們不願接種的主要原因是「新冠風險不夠大」,這是所有受訪國家中比例最高的。

但諾雷卡斯指出,黃嚴忠在此處刻意隱藏了部分信息,在益索普所有15個國家的數據中,中國願意接種疫苗的比例其實是最高的,高於美國的69%,也高於法國的40%。

與此同時,美國和法國的疫情應對做的也相對不好。諾雷卡斯說,同樣在1月28日,一個人在美國感染新冠病毒的激烈高達兩千分之一,而在中國感染的幾率可能低至一千萬分之一。因此中國人感到感染風險低,是有充分理由的。

諾雷卡斯最後舉的例子,是《紐約時報》1月25日的紙質報頭版文章。當天,報紙頭版放著一張「不祥」的照片,照片上的人穿著防護服,站在警戒線後面,上面寫著「不要越過」,標題是《又一波新冠病毒襲擊香港》。

諾雷卡斯提到的《紐約時報》頭版關於香港疫情的照片和報道

但諾雷卡斯批評說,香港的人口約為750萬人,而這所謂的「又一波新冠病毒」,指的是香港每天有約75人感染病毒。但在《紐約時報》總部所在的紐約市,每天約有4000人感染。因此,《紐約時報》頭版上可怕的照片和說明完全沒有提到香港疫情的嚴重程度大約是紐約正常情況的五十分之一。

諾雷卡斯在文章最後自問自答道:「為什麼要把世界另一端,規模相對較小的新冠疫情作為《紐約時報》的頭版新聞?就像特朗普一樣,《紐約時報》知道將中國列為可怕威脅背後的政治宣傳價值。」

當然,這樣的情況不僅僅局限於《紐約時報》關於中國疫情的報道。就如該報近期的另一渲染中國「太空威脅」的報道一樣,諾雷卡斯評論說,文章援引了一群供職于軍工業資助智庫的退休將軍,以中國為借口,目的是宣傳美國太空部隊的正當性。

其他西方媒體也深諳此道。例如,英國廣播公司(BBC)近期推出一系列「重返湖北」視頻報道,也不出所料夾帶私貨。

一則視頻中,BBC記者沙磊(John Sudworth)搬出所謂「武漢實驗室泄露病毒」的傳言,再配上他在中科院武漢病毒研究所外被保安「拒之門外」的畫面,西方媒體口中「掩蓋疫情」的場景就這麼描繪出來了。


JANUARY 29, 2021
NYT』s China Syndrome
New York Times depiction of an exhibit in Wuhan commemorating the first anniversary of the Covid lockdown.

 

Imagine a parallel world where the US brought Covid under control in two months, while China still struggled with it, a year and hundreds of thousands of deaths later.

And in this alternative universe, a leading Chinese paper runs an article on the US』s 「efforts to hide its missteps」 in the Covid pandemic.

What kind of contempt would you have for that propaganda outlet, and for so-called journalists who would engage in such a transparent effort to distract from their own nation』s failures?

NYT: A Year After Wuhan, China Tells a Tale of Triumph (and No Mistakes)

「China』s leaders have little interest in dwelling on the past or revisiting their mistakes,」 say journalists from a much smaller country where 87 times as many people have now died from Covid (New York Times1/10/21).

Well, that』s how you should feel about our own world』s New York Times, which ran an article (1/10/21) with the subhead, 「The Chinese Communist Party』s efforts to hide its missteps have taken on new urgency as the anniversary of the world』s first Covid-19 lockdown nears.」 The article, by Amy Qin and Javier C. Hernández, went on to say:

China has spent much of the past year trying to spin the narrative of the pandemic as an undisputed victory led by the ruling Communist Party. The state-run news media has largely ignored the government』s missteps and portrayed China』s response as proof of the superiority of its authoritarian system, especially compared to that of the United States and other democracies, which are still struggling to contain raging outbreaks.

It』s a puzzling passage, suggesting as it does that it』s 「spin」 to portray China』s Covid response as an 「undisputed victory…compared to that of the United States.」 Let』s do that comparison:

  • China, a country of 1.4 billion people, has had just under 90,000 confirmed cases of Covid. The US, with a population of 330 million, has so far had more than 25 million cases.
  • In China, less than 5,000 people have died from Covid, a little more than 3 out of every million people. In the US, it』s 433,000, more than 1 out of every thousand people.
  • China is now averaging between one and two deaths from Covid per day. The United States』 current one-week average is 3,258 per day.
  • China』s GDP grew by 2.3% in 2020, while the US』s shrank by 2.5%.

Given these realities, it』s no wonder China thinks it has responded to the coronavirus far better than the US has—because, objectively, it has.

The genuinely remarkable thing is that the New York Times, the US』s most prestigious newspaper, has devoted considerable resources to investigating why China didn』t address the pandemic even more quickly and effectively than it did (FAIR.org10/14/20,  1/20/21). These exposés of China』s 「missteps」 generally boil down to Beijing not taking the virus seriously enough before January 23, 2020, when it put the entire city of Wuhan in quarantine—at which point the virus had been implicated in 17 deaths.

To put that in perspective, there were 16 deaths from Covid yesterday just in New Hampshire, the US』s 10th smallest state.

The Times『 specifying 「the United States and other democracies」 as the group of countries China is comparing itself to is a bit of a red herring. While it』s true that many US allies weathered the pandemic as poorly as the US did, there are several wealthy countries with multi-party political systems that did far better—including New Zealand, South Korea, Australia, Japan, Iceland, Norway and Finland. So the disparity is not so much between 「authoritarian」 states and 「democracies,」 as the Times suggests, as between countries that took the coronavirus seriously and those that didn』t.

 

Total deaths from Covid-19 normalized by population, selected countries

(Source: 91-DIVOC)

The advantages of mass death
NYT: Has China Done Too Well Against Covid-19?

「China』s comparative success now risks hurting the country,」 an apparently non-satirical New York Times op-ed (12/29/20) argued.

If maintaining that China』s Covid response wasn』t really all that great doesn』t seem plausible, maybe you could argue that it was too good? That was the actual argument of a New York Times op-ed (1/24/20), headlined 「Has China Done Too Well Against Covid-19?」

The main evidence presented by author Yanzhong Huang that China was suffering from not enough people dying is that it is 「over-exporting vaccines made in China in a bid to expand its influence internationally.」 By this, Huang means that China is sending many of the doses it manufactures to places like Brazil, where a thousand people are killed by Covid every day, rather than keeping most of them at home, where Covid kills one or two people each day. If only the Chinese people had experienced mass death like we did to teach them the value of hoarding.

Huang, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, also claims that in China, 「the population feels much safer than it should.」 He cites as evidence a cross-national Ipsos survey (12/29/20) that found that just 80% of respondents in China would take a Covid vaccine if one were available. Huang doesn』t mention that that was the highest positive response rate among the 15 countries polled—compared to 69% in the US and only 40% in France, countries that have certainly not suffered from doing too well against Covid.

But, Huang points out, of the 20% disinclined to get vaccinated, 32% say it』s because they are not at enough risk from Covid. Of course, a third of one-fifth is less than 7% of the population, which hardly seems like enough to make one regret not having more Covid deaths. It』s similar to the fraction of people in the US who say they wouldn』t take a vaccine because they aren』t at risk enough, despite the advantage Americans have had of a 400,000+ death toll. But Chinese people who think that their risk of catching Covid is low are on solid ground, statistically: In the United States, your chances of coming down with Covid yesterday were about 1 in 2,000, whereas in China, they were 1 in 10,000,000.

The value of a scary danger
NYT: New Wave of Covid Hits Hong Kong

The New York Times (1/25/21) treated it as front-page news when Hong Kong reached the same number of daily Covid cases as the Brighton Beach zip code in Brooklyn.

Too good or not good enough, China』s coronavirus response is an obsession of the New York Times. On January 25, the front page of the Times『 print edition was dominated by an ominous above-the-fold photo of people in protective gear behind police tape reading 「DO NOT CROSS,」 with a caption headline 「Another Wave of Covid-19 Hits Hong Kong.」 This 「wave」 consisted of residents of Hong Kong (population 7.5 million) coming down with Covid at the rate of 75 a day—whereas in New York City (population 8.4 million), people are catching it at the rate of about 4,000 a day. But the context that Hong Kong』s outbreak was roughly 1/50th as bad as what』s considered business as usual in the Times『 hometown was entirely missing from the scary photo and caption on the paper』s front page.

Why make a relatively tiny outbreak of the coronavirus on the other side of the world front-page news at the New York Times? Like Donald Trump, the paper is certainly aware of the propaganda value of pointing to China as a scary danger—as illustrated by an ostensibly unrelated story adjacent on the same front page, with the print headline 「US Counters Space Threat From China.」 In that article, a gaggle of retired generals, now at weapons industry–funded think tanks, used Beijing to make the case that maybe Space Force wasn』t such a wacky idea after all.

ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTimes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your communication in the comments thread.

 Filed under: 

Jim NaureckasJim Naureckas

Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org, and has edited FAIR's print publication Extra! since 1990. He is the co-author of The Way Things Aren』t: Rush Limbaugh』s Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader. He was an investigative reporter for In These Times and managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere. Born in Libertyville, Illinois, he has a poli sci degree from Stanford. Since 1997 he has been married to Janine Jackson, FAIR』s program director.

 


高興

感動

同情

搞笑

難過

拍磚

支持

鮮花

評論 (0 個評論)

facelist doodle 塗鴉板

您需要登錄后才可以評論 登錄 | 註冊

關於本站 | 隱私權政策 | 免責條款 | 版權聲明 | 聯絡我們

Copyright © 2001-2013 海外華人中文門戶:倍可親 (http://big5.backchina.com) All Rights Reserved.

程序系統基於 Discuz! X3.1 商業版 優化 Discuz! © 2001-2013 Comsenz Inc.

本站時間採用京港台時間 GMT+8, 2024-3-29 08:04

返回頂部