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寫了篇關於西方媒體報道西藏有失客觀的文章, 有點遲了, 但願能起點作用.文章是用英文寫的, 而且有點長. 若有人需要轉, 沒有版權, 但希望全部轉而不要摘選.
-作者:spiro
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed?
In the infamous anti-communism roars in 1950s in post World War II US when McCarthyism is at its summit, Joseph R. McCarthy, Junior Senator from Wisconsin once quoted Shakespeare's Cassius: "Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed? (that he is grown so great)" in his attack on Army Secretary Stevens for his alleged protection of the alleged wide spread of communism in the army. Anyone who is aware of that part of US history would know how much fear and destruction McCarthyism had brought to American citizens and America as a nation. Fortunately enough that dark era is also a time that has many journalists such as Edward R. Murrow (CBS), who many considered as one of journalism's greatest figures.
In a series of TV news reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator McCarthy, Murrow once asked: "And upon what meat doth Senator McCarthy feed? Two of the staples of his diet are the investigation, protected by immunity, and the half-truth", pointing out the typical tactics McCarthy had been using, that accusation was often used as proof and that conviction of the accused was often based upon evidence without named witness and without due process of law.
As Murrow pointed out ever so clearly in the series of news report that whether particular accusations made by McCarthy is true or not (many are not) is of no importance but rather, as Truman put it, "it is the corruption of truth, the abandonment of the due process law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level of society".
In any journalism text book, I would assume that any reporter from CNN, Washington Post and BBC can quote better than I do, "To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible; to be credible, we must be truthful". After all, they are the new generation of journalists that are inspired by the footsteps of Murrow, Cronkite, Woodward and Bernstein. Or, are they?
In this recent events of violence broke out in Tibet, flood of reports, pictures, and videos were brought to all over the world. Many accusations were made along with many editorial comments, but few facts were presented objectively, and even less truth has been published by major media such as CNN, Washington Post, and BBC. It is neither my intention nor is it within my capacity to present the world what truly have happened in Tibet or to defend Chinese government, after all this is the time of information, many of us who want unbiased news report would be able to go through our own sources over the internet and see many sides of the stories as they are. It is my intention however, to point out that McCarthyism has, and still is corrupting the so called truth reported by most major media on anything that is related in anyway to communism. China as one of the only major power that is considered communism, certainly is and will always remain as the center piece.
In one of the most famous photos that were first published by CNN, two Chinese military trucks drove through a deserted street in Lhasa while two Tibetan civilians wondered in far distance apparently in panic and in fear. Later several larger photos surfaced over the internet and it is obvious that the CNN photo was cropped carefully from one of them. What the CNN photo did not reveal, is that there was a mob of Tibetan rioters, throwing rocks to the cars and stores and setting some on fire. Why CNN chose to crop the picture in such way that is vastly different from the truth is certainly worth wondering, but not for us to find out. CNN's official reply is that is due to the format limitation on the photos. Well, I will leave that for the reader themselves to judge its truthfulness.
In another photo published on Washington Post's website, several uniformed policemen armed with sticks were beating some appeared to be Tibetan protestors. The caption for the picture reads "China's government is cracking down Tibetan protestors who took the streets to protest Chinese rule of the province". Later it was some careful readers who questioned the policemen's uniform discovered that the photo was originally published on a Nepal newspaper on police cracking down Tibetan protestors in Nepal.
Once Murrow said, "We, like everyone in this business, are going to be judged by what we put on the air; but we also shall be judged by what we don't broadcast. If we pull back on this we'll have it with us always." Now, why CNN and Washington Post choose to reduce themselves to a low level that is unprecedented to the mainstream journalism? Again, I will use Murrow's words to answer that.
Earlier, the senator asked, "Upon what meat does this, our Caesar feed?" Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare's 'Caesar,' he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
Yes, all of us, as little as we may realize it, McCarthyism is still among us. We fear communism, not for its ideas but for the part that it is so vastly different from ours, that anyone or any nation that is associated with it must be evil and hence must be treated as one. The reporters at CNN and Washington Post did not created all this, they merely exploited it - and rather successfully as they always have been. No one man can bias a whole nation and whole world unless we are all his accomplices. Cassius was right. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
Once Murrow said, "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home". There could not be more trueth to that. Equally if not more importantly, we can not proclaim ourselves the defenders of freedom, in one place in the world while deserting it elsewhere. Unfortunately today, in the new era beyond the years of Murrow, Cronkite, Woodward and Bernstein, the journalists in CNN, Washington Post, etc, have shown us just that. |
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