07.14.07
The Time China Blog, and other Media Grievances
Recently I have begun following the Time Magazine China Blog. Here is the gist of the past few posts. China produces fake products. China has phony environmental awareness programs. China says they are going to open up media restrictions for the Olympics, but we all know that it’s baloney. China wrongly incarcerates people who are not criminals. China has slave labor. China is cracking down on independent blogs, et cetera, et cetera.
What irks me about this blog is not that it is completely one-sided, but that it makes no attempt to understand or explain its opposition. It only takes a novice journalist to criticize China based on standards which would be applicable to the United States. A more skilled journalist would dig deeper and examine why the particular situation evolved the way it did.
This failure on Time’s part to provide decent journalism on China is nothing new in the American media, and it reflects a deeper problem. As Americans, we are cognizant of the conditions and historical events which gave rise to our political system. While our political/economic system isn’t without its own flaws, it is well-tailored to our culture and ideals. What Americans often forget is that the conditions and historical events which gave birth to the American system have not been identical around the world.
China’s history over the past 50 years has followed a different path from ours in the USA. While we were worrying about escalating gas prices and the threat of communists from far off continents, Chinese people were worrying about whether or not they would have enough food to eat or how many of their children would survive infancy. While McDonald’s was building an empire so that Americans could fulfill their 5000 calorie per day diets, Chinese people were subsisting on meals of cabbage and sweet potatoes. We endured Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The Chinese endured Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward.
The hardship, turbulence, and insecurity of the past 50 years (and you could say the past few millennia as well) have a deep impact on Chinese people’s psyche. Although living conditions in China have rapidly improved since the Reform and Opening Up, the values which evolved under previous conditions will take far longer to dissipate.
Is it justifiable to put harmful chemicals into products to increase profits? Would it be more justifiable, or at least explainable, to do so, if increasing your profits meant the difference between being able and not being able to pay for your children’s medical bills? Are there ever situations where an authoritarian government and media censorship are necessary to ensure the continued development of an economy? I am not suggesting that the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” but a responsible journalist would at very least address them, and rather than simply using standards based on a country thousands of miles and several decades of development away.
By criticizing problems without analyzing the reason for their existence, the American media only adds to the current conception that the USA over meddles in other nation’s internal affairs. Those who believe that Chinese citizens are unaware of these issues because they are not staging massive demonstrations are using their own value system to judge 1.3 billion people. The Chinese have opinions as well, and many of them are ironically quite similar to those of Western journalists. The difference is that the Chinese understand the source of their problems, and realize it takes more than just a magic wand and a protest (or a few posts on time-blog.com) to make them go away.
joyce
said,
July 14, 2007 at 3:11 am
Sofa~
culture is hard to talk about except u r really in the country to experience it.
Lisle and Marcia
said,
July 14, 2007 at 3:24 am
Ben,
Don’t know if you’ve had a chance to see, but the terrific interview you did for our podcast (At Home in China) has been up on our Site for a while:AtHomeinChina.com. Don’t know whether or not we’re still being blocked in China, though.
Wishing you all the best and
fei chang gan xie!
Lisle and Marcia
Phillip Taylor
said,
July 14, 2007 at 5:33 am
nice job ben. i do believe it is very hard to understand china. does anyone really do so?
i think it is much harder for people who have never met chinese people, or conversed in their own language. personally, learning the chinese language (and thus learning from chinese people) has changed my view entirely. it is very difficult to make sense of such a long history. especially with the WHIRLWIND changes of the last fifty (or hundred) years. i truly believe that the last hundred years have been the most turbulent of chinese history. and yet they weather it so well!
i don’t want to get too complicated, so i’d just like to compliment the flexibility of the chinese people in general. it is really amazing!
amazing!
best wishes to everyone,
phillip
Laura Lee
said,
July 14, 2007 at 6:11 am
Ben,
I like your blog a lot but somewhat disagree with the sentiment you expressed in this post.
I do not treat the blogs as the representation of the media or the profession of journalists. I do not know why TIME decides to set up this blog. But equating that blog to the American media and journalism is probably overstated.
American media and journalism has its own flaws and problems but is probably by far one of the best in the world. Keep reading People’s Daily or watching CCTV Evening News everyday for an entire week to see if you have a change of heart.
There are many articles that provided in-depth analysis and balanced coverage of phenomena and events happened and/or happening in China. But you probably cannot find them in the on-line blogs. You can easily find them in BusinessWeek, PBS Frontline programs, and The Economists (wrong example, The Economists is a British magazine). I have not read TIME or NewsWeek for a long while so I cannot speak for them.
When I visited my folks in Beijing (almost once a year), I often felt suffocated because of the lack of professional journalism in the news papers or on TV.
Alan
said,
July 14, 2007 at 6:28 am
Hey Ben, I think the Time blogs are a lot more entertaining, I mean controversial, than yours. In one blog, one Korean guy and some Chinese duked it out really well with their comments. In their defense, they do have some entertainment value. You have yet to bring up a controversial topic.
Laura Lee
said,
July 14, 2007 at 7:45 am
Ben,
I hope this is not the type of in-depth analysis you are looking for.
http://news.enorth.com.cn/system/2007/07/12/001766828.shtml (Chinese link)
point?
said,
July 14, 2007 at 11:09 am
@alan, is that the point? are blogs just a more efficient means to begin flame wars for the benefit of entertainment?
canrun
said,
July 14, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I also have to say that I am deeply disappointed by the writers at the Time.com blog. Of course, they are “Old China Hands” who could do a great service by analyzing the problems they have written about. Instead, we are left with what seems like throwing a bunch of s–t against the wall, seeing what sticks and then letting the 愤青 have a field day about how the U.S. hates China and that Time.com only posts negative articles about China. And those bizarre posts by Liam-he looks scary!
Anyhow, I digress…
I hate to agree with the 愤青, but heck…they are RIGHT in this case. Time really needs to do a better job, step up to the plate and provide some analytical commentary on the articles they post. Richard Spencer and Tim Johnson do an admirable job of this. Otherwise, it turns into a free for all (which Kebab Boy usually wins-hated as he is. Ha. Or the Prophet, my personal friend. Go figure…)
canrun
said,
July 14, 2007 at 12:09 pm
@Lisle & Marcia
“Don’t know whether or not we’re still being blocked in China, though.”
Computer sez…yes.
Matt Schiavenza
said,
July 14, 2007 at 12:45 pm
You’re right- there’s a lot of lazy, bad journalism about China, and quite a lot of it results from ignorance and ethnocentrism by Western writers. But does the Time blog qualify? I don’t know.
For one thing, you portray the China blog writers as being somehow detached and ignorant about China. Yet from reading their biographies, all five live in Hong Kong or China, all five (one assumes given their qualifications) speak and read Chinese, and all five appear to have extensive experience living and working in this country. It isn’t as if Time assigned some random political reporters to start a China blog. All of these writers are well-qualified and probably know more about China’s history and situation than you give them credit for.
Plus, the sort of analysis you’re seeking (such as putting China’s lax regulatory system within the context of the Great Leap Forward) doesn’t suit itself to a blog. The blog, being published by a newsmagazine, is necessarily “newsy”. I’m sure any of the five Time people (or Tim Johnson, Richard Spencer, or whomever) could probably churn out a 6,000 word essay weaving in historical explanations for China’s current perfidy, but as their audience wants news about China, that’s what their writers provide.
There’s a lot of silly anti-China drivel written by unthinking foreigners with only a superficial understanding of this country- but the Time blog just doesn’t fall into that category, as far as I’m concerned. t’s occasionally boring, and weird (in the case of Liam) but it’s pretty damn fair and reasonable.
Also- I hate to join the tit-for-tat game, but could you imagine a blog written by four People’s Daily journalists based in the US, UK, France, or elsewhere? Or- heaven forbid- Japan?
Things have improved, but the foreign media remains a far more reliable source of information pertaining to China than the domestic one.
qingdao
said,
July 14, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Maybe you should go back to cutting hair. Do you really believe there is TOO MUCH criticism of things Chinese in the media? My guess is the journalists at Time know as much about Chinese history as you do and really don’t feel it necessary (in a blog) to retrace the roots of fake baby milk, air pollution, etc. What they are doing is good for China, the Chinese people – and takes courage.
zuraffo
said,
July 14, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Time blog is FUNNY! I follow it eagerly everyday. It’s more entertaining than amerikan’s TV series like say prison break to me. I frequently laugh out loud at the silly posts and comments there. I hope they keep it up!
I think America has some fine journalism, but definitely not available in the mainstream media. On the contrary, I think the really good ones are the independents like Counterpunch, truthout, Antiwar.com, etc. I also read Joe bageant, Aurthur Silber, Chris Floyd and I think they are fine, fine writers (A bit too groomy for my taste, definitely not as FUNNY as times blog, but these guys can write!)
zuraffo
said,
July 14, 2007 at 1:29 pm
It says ‘gloomy’. You did not see my typo.
Micah Sittig
said,
July 14, 2007 at 1:50 pm
@Matt and a bunch of other posters: Straw men, all of you. Ben wasn’t making a point about reliability or accuracy, but about perspective. Go back and read his post again.
And the “ooh, but Chinese media is bad too” line of discussion is classic, but no thanks.
Benjamin Ross
said,
July 14, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Matt Says:
This is what I find so strange. I have read all the biographies, and these authors should have extensive, insightful knowledge about China, yet they write as if they are the same people who spend a week in Shanghai, never stray too far away from the 5 star hotel, and think they have an inside view on China. By the way, if anybody wants some legitimate China journalism allow me to recommend China Law Blog and Danwei.
chriswaugh_bj
said,
July 14, 2007 at 2:06 pm
If you think the Time China blog is bad now, you should’ve seen it when it started- it read like a blog by high school kids. Which is not in itself a bad thing, but certainly not what you would expect of professional journalists. At least now it is starting to look “newsy”, but still it is just as shallow and biased as one would expect of Time Magazine.
And Signor Schiavenza, I have to disagree with you on one point. I do think the blog should be a vehicle for a little deeper analysis and insight. As you point out, the Time correspondents should be more than qualified enough to give those behind-the-scenes, fleshing-out-the-stories look at things in greater detail and context than regular Time mag articles would allow. I’m not asking for 6000 word essays, just a little more effort at contextualising the stories they report.
I also doubt the foreign media is any better than the Chinese media. Better than People’s Daily, China Daily or CCTV, certainly, but there’s a lot more out there, and the reports I read in the foreign media are usually only marginally better than Time.
“Also- I hate to join the tit-for-tat game, but could you imagine a blog written by four People’s Daily journalists based in the US, UK, France, or elsewhere? Or- heaven forbid- Japan?”
Thanks Matt, now you’ve guarunteed nightmares for me tonight.
canrun
said,
July 14, 2007 at 7:25 pm
I don’t care how politically incorrect this comment is: Ling Liu is HOT!
And Liam is still scary…
Alan
said,
July 15, 2007 at 4:57 am
To answer point?’s question, no, I don’t believe so. I was trying to be sarcastic. I know I still need to work on my sarcasm. Lest I would be misunderstood.
What’s 愤青? Can anyone please explain? Must be a new term of the Internate age. Maybe it’s something like Generation Xers?
canrun
said,
July 15, 2007 at 10:30 am
“What’s 愤青? Can anyone please explain? ”
Sure…it’s called “fenqing” or angry youth. Read on here…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenqing
Matt Schiavenza
said,
July 15, 2007 at 11:23 am
Hmm, re-read the post and perhaps I did miss Ben’s point a bit hence the strawman. But I still think it unreasonable to ask the Time Blog to provide more perspective to its posts on rather mundane issues such as food contamination.
For one thing, one has to assume that the audience of the Time Blog are people who already have an interest in China and at least a passing knowledge of the country’s history. Virtually any current event in China could be placed within the context of the Cultural Revolution, market reforms, Great Leap Forward, or any other important event in the past fifty years.
So as to avoid excessive pedantry, I think the Time Blog pretty much just dishes on current events and allows its readers to draw their own conclusions. I’ve been reading the blog now for a month or two and frankly I find it pretty uncontroversial and even-handed considering it’s a news blog written by Westerners about China.
PS- One reason the Time guys didn’t cite “paying one’s sons medical bills” as an explanation for the food contamination issue is that….it’s frankly pretty absurd. As far as I’m concerned, the case came down to pure greed, and the absence of effective regulation in China. And to be fair- neither greed nor ineffective regulation are exclusive to China.
Handan
said,
July 15, 2007 at 11:34 am
Ben, upon seeing Matt’s “Yet from reading their biographies, all five live in Hong Kong or China, all five (one assumes given their qualifications) speak and read Chinese, and all five appear to have extensive experience living and working in this country”, I was thinking what you said in response.
Would share one example to back it up. I once met an English speaking Hongkong citizen, an Indian descendant, who was born and raised in Hongkong, did all his precollege schooling there. So I assumed, “you must speak decent Cantonese then?”
“No. Not at all. ”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “What about Mandarin then?”
“Not at all. ”
“What do you mean not at all? Not even the very basic conversations?” I pressed.
“No. ”
This happens. You can live in Hongkong ,Beijing and Shanghai, and choose not to look outside your own nice little community.
Alan
said,
July 15, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Canrun, thanks for the wikipedia link. I actually knew the literary meaning of the word 愤青, but didn’t know what they really are. Wikipedia has an excellent description. Yes, I have read a lot of racist comments posted by these folks on Japanese. If this is the best and brightest that China has to offer, God help them. I am Chinese and got my college education in China before heading to the Beautiful Country. The nationalistic and racist sentiment expressed by this generation of angry youth is alarming. When 9/11 hit the U.S., a group of 30 Chinese journalists were here in the U.S. as guests of the U.S. State Department on a 1 month tour of U.S. media and TV outlets. It was reported that they were watching the 9/11 news coverage with their American hosts when many of the Chinese delegates applauded for the terrorists. They thought their American hosts didn’t understand Chinese. This incident was widely reported in a few Chinese language newspapers in the U.S. Needless to say, the State Department cut short the visit time of the Chinese delegates. They sent them home shortly. I was shocked to read about that. So were some of my Chinese American friends. I actually had to show them the newspaper coverage to convince them. Now I wonder if this group of Chinese delegates are considered 愤青. I would think so.
Matt Schiavenza
said,
July 15, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Sure- not every foreigner living in major Chinese cities speaks Mandarin or Cantonese, and not knowing any of the Time journalists personally I can’t vouch for their ability to communicate with Chinese people.
But several have had extensive academic and professional experience with China so I think it’s safe to assume they speak reasonably well. I would think working for Time is a fairly prestigious and competitive job in journalism and that these five had to have had impressive backgrounds in order to get it. I doubt they’d hire any blogging schmoe like me (though if they’d like to I wouldn’t mind)
But I could be wrong.
Benjamin Ross
said,
July 15, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Matt (and others)-
One of the points I wanted to elaborate on, before I trimmed the original post down a bit, is that often it is the blogging schmoes who have better insight than those who have extensive resumes. When it comes to understanding another culture, or another country (and I can only vouch for China here), I think it comes down to 1) location and 2) attitude.
On the first point, several months ago I was considering grad schools in Chinese studies. As interested as I was, it seemed counterproductive for me to go back to the US to study about China. My own personal belief is that no institutionalized education can take the place of personal experience. Using me as an example, I received what I would call a pretty good Anthropology education at the University of Kansas. But what I learned about anthropology in the classrooms at KU could never compare to what I learned about anthropology in restaurants, discos, parks, trains, internet message boards and barbershops in China. Which brings me to the next point, attitude. I find foreigners who stay in China for an extended time usually fall into one of two categories. Either they absorb the culture, learn about it, and gain a lot (this usually, but not always includes learning the language). The other group gets frustrated with their inability to adapt and accept, and usually leaves China angry, and with a reaffirmed sense that their own culture, political system, and way of life is indeed superior to those of the Chinese barbarians. Unfortunately, I feel that the Time writers fall into the latter category.
What I am getting it, is that you would think that looking at somebody’s qualifications, you could determine their ability to “understand” (I wish I had a better word) China. The fact is, you can’t.
chriswaugh_bj
said,
July 15, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Matt, you wrote: “For one thing, one has to assume that the audience of the Time Blog are people who already have an interest in China and at least a passing knowledge of the country’s history.” This strikes me as being precisely why they should be offering a deeper perspective on the news from China. If all I wanted was the usual shallow, context-free and often biased “news” about China, I’d go to the Time mag and read the regular reports. What the better journo-bloggers do is take a deeper look at the situation behind the headlines. This is the number one reason the Time China blog fails.
That and its absurdly presumptuous name- “The China Blog”- there is no other!
Ji Village News
said,
July 15, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Good job Ben!
Some people, even include so-called journalists themselves, both in China and US, have been drinking too much Kool-Aid
Laura Lee
said,
July 16, 2007 at 12:11 am
Dear all,
I have to say that I agree with Matt more. I am a Chinese living in the States. I consider myself still in grasp of things going on in China. I visited my folks in Beijing every year and called them at least once a week. If I compared what Mom told me about things at home lately and the events listed on the Time blog, believe it or not, the correlation is actually high. Just make sure you know that Mom does not read English at all.
As a Chinese, I am not really pissed off by the Time blog: if our Chinese brethren did not do things right at home, it should be all right that someone pointed them out. What saddened me the most is the ridiculous, illogic, discriminatory comments left by those fengqings (愤青).
Ji Village News
said,
July 16, 2007 at 1:45 am
Laura Lee, I agree with you.
Personally, I think a lot of the points here are valid, even if they are seemingly contradictory at the surface. I think it is very important to always give a narrative its proper context, to be open-minded, and to be able to look at things from different angles and other people’s perspectives, instead of coming in with a pre-conceived notion. I really enjoyed reading Matt, Ben, chriswaugh_bj, handan, and a lot of other people’s comments.
I also agree that there are some ignorant and mis-guided fenqings, who could use their anger and energy in more productive ways. I am a Chinese living in the US. China is a huge country with many, many problems and challenges, but I think overall, it is moving in the right direction. I’ve learned over the years that there is no need to be defensive about people’s comments and observations, which Fenqings tend to be. Take people’s comments and observations with a pinch of salt, Time magazine’s PROFESSIONAL bloggers included. If they are right, learn from it. If they are wrong but not that important, laugh it off or ignore. If they are wrong and grossly misleading, it is important to provide a different view to counter it in an objective, analytical, and, gasp, even humorous way.
Alan
said,
July 16, 2007 at 3:09 am
“I am a Chinese living in the US. China is a huge country with many, many problems and challenges, but I think overall, it is moving in the right direction. I’ve learned over the years that there is no need to be defensive about people’s comments and observations…”
Ditto here. And I agree, agree, and agree.
On the other hand, I understand Ben’s point and his problem with Time bloggers’s take on China. I think it’s because of exactly what Ben has observed that dinstinguishes comments posted on his blogs vs. theirs. You don’t have any fengqins here posting inflammatory remarks. That was what I was trying to say in my botched sarcasm above.
Laura Lee
said,
July 16, 2007 at 8:56 am
Ji Village News,
Very well said. Thanks.
Matt Schiavenza
said,
July 16, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Ben,
You’re absolutely right about various foreigners ending up being bitter and hateful toward China, and anyone who has been here long enough knows examples of the genre.
But from my reading of the Time blog, they just don’t seem to fall into that category. Their criticisms of the Chinese government all seem fairly valid to me, and they refrain from petty swipes at China like certain other bloggers and blog commenters.
What does concern me is that there’s a perception that every criticism of China has to be tempered with a “yeah, but…” analysis of why the Chinese or the Chinese government is the way it is. There’s a third category of foreigners- the China apologists- who reflexively defend every aspect of their adopted home until they’re blue in the face.
I don’t mean to intimate that Ben, Chris, or anyone else is an apologist, but I think foreigner-written blogs critical of China should be encouraged rather than disparaged. After all, the Chinese government is repressive and authoritarian, dissent is not tolerated, censorship of the internet and media is sophisticated and broad, the environmental problems are real, and China’s behavior in foreign affairs (in particular with countries like Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, and Burma) is not always benign and helpful.
There are of course legitimate explanations for all of this, but one should be able to point out the flaws without being attacked for bias or ethnocentrism.
And just as such, the Chinese should be able to criticize the US without having to be lectured about our context and history.
Apologies for the long comment
chriswaugh_bj
said,
July 16, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Matt, expecting the Time bloggers to go into greater depth or to provide more context does not necessarily mean expecting to do a “yeah, but….” and provide some kind of excuse or justification. Take ESWN’s coverage of the Shanxi brick kiln slavery scandal- stacks of context and background information, plenty of depth (all taken from the Chinese media, too), not even the hint of trying to excuse or justify what happened. Shouldn’t the Time bloggers be capable of that?
China Law Blog
said,
July 16, 2007 at 1:30 pm
I concur with Ben that many of the posts on the Time blog just seem to be phoned in and I too find it frustrating because sometimes their posts are really excellent. I just don’t think the writers there really have their hearts in the blog. I also find it very frustrating when they do a story that has been covered quite well and in great depth by another blogger and yet they make absolutely no mention of that other post. I do not think for a moment that they are copying, rather, I think that they simply do not do enough reading of the other leading blogs out there. There site reads more like a Time Mag outtake page than a blog.
I also concur with Ben that if one is going to criticize China, one must put it in perspective. Not every time, but much of the time. I think this is particularly important for Time to do because it does draw in many readers who are not terribly knowledgeable about China and, unfortunately, not terribly knowledgeable about US history. I oftentimes get revelations about how things are in China from the television show Deadwood and from old Westerns. I am not kidding. China is not unique. It is going through a phase of development similar to that which the United States, Korea, and Japan underwent and similar to that which Russia is presently undergoing. Time need not put China into perspective every time, but why not do so in order to enlighten?
canrun
said,
July 16, 2007 at 6:15 pm
“I oftentimes get revelations about how things are in China from the television show Deadwood and from old Westerns.”
Those C-c- Su–er Bao Fa Hu! (暴发户)
Katherine
said,
July 31, 2007 at 9:24 am
“But what I learned about anthropology in the classrooms at KU could never compare to what I learned about anthropology in restaurants, discos, parks, trains, internet message boards and barbershops in China. Which brings me to the next point, attitude. I find foreigners who stay in China for an extended time usually fall into one of two categories. Either they absorb the culture, learn about it, and gain a lot (this usually, but not always includes learning the language). The other group gets frustrated with their inability to adapt and accept, and usually leaves China angry, and with a reaffirmed sense that their own culture, political system, and way of life is indeed superior to those of the Chinese barbarians. Unfortunately, I feel that the Time writers fall into the latter category.
What I am getting it, is that you would think that looking at somebody’s qualifications, you could determine their ability to “understand” (I wish I had a better word) China. The fact is, you can’t. ”
I agree with Ben’s opinion. Very coincident to find this blog,and very surprised that the writer was my college english teacher.
Have a nice day !
sloppyzhou
said,
August 8, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Rather than slam the writers themselves, why not take issue with the editorial decisions being made over there. Those writers are/were selected because of their inflammatory posture on China, and Time being the major media outlet it is, feels its time for that. Their coverage during the mid-90’s and early 2000 wasn’t exactly balanced either.
I also think there’s room for insider stuff on the Time blog, as its plain to anyone that lives here that there are so many odd, quirky and surprising things that happen here everyday (does anyone remember the 70-day 烧饼 craze that swept the nation?).
But then again, man, someone needs to be putting out serious, well-written criticism of what’s going on here. Perspective and education is even a problem telling our own history and news. So what, we shouldn’t criticize to such a degree that it may give the uninitiated the wrong idea?