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Foreign Media Face a
Trust Crisis in China
Western media have lost a good
deal of their credibility with ordinary
Chinese. How can they recover that
trust?
Mu Chunshan
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When I was a student more than 20 years
ago I would take a radio into the
university garden at night to listen to the
news broadcasts of the BBC and VOA. It
was a way to practice my English listening
skills but I also felt like I was learning
from the broadcasts. At that time there
was no internet media and few
alternatives to state-run media in China.
Hearing the original English broadcasts in
this way I naturally believed most of
content.
How things have changed since then.
With the rapid spread of digital
technology China has become the
worldŇs largest internet country.
Nowadays there are many ways to learn
English and anyone with a smartphone
can watch English news channels. As a
result ordinary Chinese see the world
differently. They do not need to accept
information from a single source. Trust in
state-owned media is definitely
decreasing bit by bit among Chinese
people but in parallel a question mark is
often drawn on foreign media reports.
Western media has gradually lost its trust
among ordinary Chinese people. Why?
With the rapid development of ChinaŇ
s
economy and significant social progress
Chinese people have seen great
improvements in their day-to-day lives. At
the same time their self-confidence in
the face of the outside world is also
increasing. Ordinary people may have
looked up to Western media in the past
but now they are looking at it eye-to-eye
and some Chinese nationalists are even
starting to look down on Western media.
In some Chinese eyes foreign media
might seem to be independent but are
actually controlled – if not by their
governments then by their financial
masters which also ultimately serve
foreign interests and are just as unfriendly
to China. This had led many Chinese to
conclude that foreign media reports on
China basically smear the country.
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It doesnŇt help that on occasion foreign
media reports on China affairs make
obvious mistakes. In such cases the slipups immediately become the focus of
Chinese social media and Chinese stateowned media will follow up to jeer at
Western media. A few months ago the
state-owned China Daily strongly blasted
these media outlets and described their
journalists as ʼnChina haters.Ŋ
In this way itŇs easy to create an
atmosphere of increasing distrust of
foreign media across Chinese society.
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U.K. Ambassador to China Caroline
Wilson recently penned an article titled
ʼnDo foreign media hate China?Ŋ which
defended foreign reporting on China
affairs. She argued that China should
allow foreign media to report freely. But
unfortunately her article only aroused
more anger among Chinese people.
I agree with the ambassador that foreign
media generally do not hate China. I have
been in contact with many foreign
journalists from the West and the South
alike and I know that none of them hates
China. But the problem lies in the fact
that some sloppy foreign media reports
on China serve as an ʼnAchilles heelŊ
–
their factual errors serve to discredit all of
foreign media by association.
For example in October 2019 the British
police found 39 bodies in a container
truck. In the absence of any information
from police the British media said the
victims who were of Asian descent were
illegal Chinese immigrants. CNN later
repeated the mistake – it did not check
the facts but arbitrarily affirmed the
victims were Chinese. In fact at a press
conference of the Chinese Ministry of
Foreign Affairs CNN ridiculed China by
asking the spokesperson a trick question:
ʼnAs you laid out there have been many
successes advances and progress of the
past 70 years with the PeopleŇs Republic
of China… what would then motivate
people from China to want to leave?Ŋ
When the British police confirmed that 39
victims were all Vietnamese the Western
media went silent and never corrected
their earlier mistakes.
When Chinese people hear about such
mistakes which seem to be motivated by
underlying negative assumptions about
China they question the credibility of all
foreign media. This is not a matter of
foreign media supervision in China as the
U.K. ambassador said nor is it about
preventing foreign media from reporting
on China but a basic question of whether
the content they report on China affairs is
true or not. If it is fake news Chinese
people are certainly not happy.
Of course I think specific examples of
obvious errors and unprofessional
reporting on China affairs are not
evidence of systematic fraud nor are
foreign media reporters ʼnChina haters.Ŋ
But individual mistakes affect the whole.
How can foreign media better report on
China in the future and increase Chinese
peopleŇs trust in them? I would like to
make three suggestions for them to
improve their coverage of China.
First foreign media need to take more
care to stay true to basic journalistic
practices. Truth is the lifeblood of the
news. Incident of ʼnfake newsŊ and
misinformation do irreparable harm to
mediaŇs reputation whether the news
involves China or not. Indeed the anger in
the United States directed against media
outlets like the New York Times and
Washington Post for their perceived bias
on U.S. political issues also feeds the
perception within China that Western
media cannot be trusted.
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To give another example a few weeks
ago an independent investigation report
published by Lord Dyson a retired U.K.
Supreme Court justice stated that BBC
reporter Martin Bashir had acted in a
ʼndeceitfulŊ way and faked documents in
1995 to obtain an exclusive interview with
Princess Diana. In 1996 an internal
investigation conducted by the BBC
covered up it. After Lord DysonŇs report
was released the BBC apologized to
Princess Diana and the British royal
family.
Princess Diana is very well-known among
the Chinese people so many of them
heard about this report. I personally was
shocked by this incident. Bashir violated
the basic bottom line of journalism to
seek truth from facts. But to many
Chinese it merely cemented their
perception of the BBC as an unreliable
actor based on its previous reporting
about China.
For instance in a very popular video on
social media recently the leader of the
Nigerian community in Guangzhou China
angrily accused a BBC Hong Kong
correspondent of having misrepresented
his interview in an article about Chinese
peopleŇs discrimination against Africans.
Ogbonna Maximus Ikenna claimed that
his comments that AfricansŇ situation in
China was getting better were not
represented in the article which did not
end up quoting him at all. This video
attracted the attention of Chinese
netizens who used it to question the
authenticity of the BBC reports. They
discussed it actively and extensively on
social media.
IkennaŇs complaint reminded many
Chinese of earlier claims accusing the
BBC of falsifying information in a video
report on Xinjiang. In that case video
footage released by the Chinese police
shows drastically different interactions
than the ones portrayed in the BBCŇ
s
video report.
Observers outside China may be inclined
to question these accusations but from
the perspective of many Chinese the
damage has been done. Charges of ʼnfake
news
Ŋ have deepened their cynicism
toward the BBC – and by extension
Western media as a whole.
Second foreign media should report
more on what ordinary Chinese people
think and avoid treating minority voices as
the mainstream. Many foreign media do
not report much about the ideas of
ordinary Chinese people instead they
prefer to amplify non-mainstream voices.
That not only makes Chinese people
dissatisfied but it also misleads foreign
people and even foreign governments by
misrepresenting the reality of China. In
general foreign media pay too much
attention to dissidents and other figures
in exile ignoring the voices of ordinary
people within China.
If only 1 percent of Chinese people are
dissatisfied with a certain policy or
practice but their voices are replicated in
90 percent of foreign media reports this
will certainly not be accepted by most
Chinese. Of course that 1 percent needs
to be heard but from the perspective of
journalistic professionalism a good
balance of different opinions is very
important to keep neutrality and
objectivity.
Third foreign journalists must contact
more professionals to gather more
information. Foreign media not only have
to speak with Chinese media public
opinion leaders
ʼnself-mediaŊ and
neutral scholars in large numbers but
also need to establish good relations with
government officials in order to obtain
more information. Some reporters may
find it distasteful to cultivate a
relationship with Chinese government
officials but the fact is that a certain level
of access is required to make reports
more credible and accountable – in China
as in any country in the world.
For example the Washington Post
reported a few days ago there were 119
ʼnmissile silosŊ being built in western
China. But it was finally confirmed the socalled silos are the holes being dug for
the construction of wind power stations.
Chinese people began to use ʼnChinese
ground circles frighten the USŊ as a tag
on social media to mock Americans for
their fragile nerves. Similar reports have
obviously affected the reputation of the
Washington Post among Chinese people.
If the Post had interviewed more Chinese
experts before publishing the report the
situation could have been avoided.
I have always believed that if foreign
media release objective and truthful news
about China it will be a boost to ChinaŇ
s
opening up to the outside world. But if
there are too many flaws in the news or
even the deliberate dissemination of false
news it will actually obstruct Chinese
social progress. Such incidents only
increase the number of anti-Western
Chinese nationalists and further widen
the gap between China and the West.