Friday, April 19, 2013

state media propaganda, the case of PBS and Xinwen Lianbo


It’s disheartening to see PBS news hour is continuing its lack of balance, diversity and public opinions because they are forced to slip into total commercialization. What really stood out to me was

“scanning the PBS schedule one finds weasels eating snakes, British people talking, Beltyway pundits barking, and a surfeit of how to shows”

instead of

“teach Americans how to dissect propaganda, evaluate policies, share their opinions with each other, and defend the public interest.”

That article was written in 2006, it’s hard to image what PBS has become of right now, but since I don’t live in America, there is no way for me to speak about the changes in PBS from a personal point of view. I can however talk about my own personal experience with the public broadcasting that’s taking place in China. It’s the same kind of propaganda that can be seen on a prime time 30-minutes news program that runs daily on CCTV, Xinwen Lianbo: nothing ever goes wrong in China, but there is always warfare and political turbulence in foreign countries, especially America. There is an interesting saying from Chinese netizen that "I wish I could live in Xinwen Lianbo". 

So what exactly is the difference between U.S media and Chinese media? Not that obvious to me. This tool of propaganda is powerful, people who are uninformed or who do not have a habit of digging through news will believe whatever that's been fed to them. 

We need that trust funds. 


No comments:

Post a Comment