TIBET AND BIAS:
In China, many citizens see no conflict in making searing critiques of inaccuracies in the Western media, even as the Chinese government actively censors the news out of Tibet. The public backlash highlights the depth of animosity widely felt in China toward Western attitudes about what many Chinese feel is a domestic issue.
As Geoffrey A. Fowler reports, even though the Chinese government bans CNN in most homes, the talk of China in recent days has been news coverage on CNN. Since Friday, Beijing Internet entrepreneur Rao Jin has been operating the Web site anti-cnn.com to document what he sees as inaccurate foreign coverage of the recent unrest in Tibet. Yet for nearly two weeks, information about Tibet has been extremely sparse, with Chinese government-controlled media keeping their coverage minimal, while foreign journalists have been ejected from Tibet.
Nonetheless, not all Chinese have defended the government. On Saturday, more than two dozen Chinese intellectuals signed an open petition laying out a 12-point plan for dealing with the Tibetan situation. Their points included ending the government-run media's "one-sided propaganda campaign," allowing foreign media to report in Tibet and negotiating directly with the Dalai Lama.
Read Geoffrey A. Fowler's report from Hong Kong on the media war:
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