Tabloids hit reality

On June 4, I commentated about the US network news' lack of Tiananmen protest retrospective coverage - largely in part from Barack Obama's victory in the US Democratic Party primaries for the 2008 election.

However, I just came upon this BBC News article today that reports on the Beijing News tabloid getting banned from mainland Chinese newsstands after it dared shed light on Democracy by posting a photo from the 1989 Tiananmen protests. So apparantly the free-speech-granted ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and NBC didn't say anything about the massacre, but the Communist-censored Beijing News could?! How ironic...in a real world the exact opposite would've happened...apparantly the same darn thing happened to the state-run CCTV too

Back home in the red, white, and blue, during the dog days of summer with about 30-35 days left until school resumes, I've been dividing my days between studying, slacking, the Internet, and the Idiot Box. During the daytime, the local channels show all sorts of "Tabloid talk shows", such as Jerry Springer and Maury. Those types of programs are for me just guilty pleasure but not really my regular taste...they ain't "must see TV" compared to quality, actually "entertaining" stuff like CSI, The Office, or The Simpsons.

On Thursday, local Fox station KTVU re-ran an old Maury episode from May 2008, titled "You're 14 and Having a Baby, Your Wild Ways End Today!" - pretty much all Maury episode titles read like a New York Post or National Enquirer headline (even his occaasional "clean" episode like his "Most Talented Kids" shows...with all the exclamation and question marks) As you might've predicted or known, that episode was among his countless "wild teens" episodes that feature teen girls who engage in sexually devious behavior. One girl featured had a baby at age 11 and repeated the 6th grade twice, and another girl was a sex & drug addict who failed 8th grade twice! Luckily, Maury Povich at least knows how to be morally correct, as he talks to the girls in a serious, concerned tone and invites motivational speakers/counselor type people like D. West, Raphael B. Johnson, and Harvey Walden to fix 'em up. After show, the girls go to "rehabilitation" places like an AIDS treatment facility (for the third-time 6th grade student) or even the Monmouth County Correctional Facility (for the others).

Later that day, I tuned to local PBS station KQED to watch The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. It was the first time in a while I actually saw Lehrer host his own show; in many previous times I watched Newshour other substitute hosts like Ray Suarez or Gwen Ifill. Thursday's edition had a story about a reform school district down in New Orleans that serviced "overage" students...yep the same type of students I saw on Maury earlier that day. The story featured...a 19-year old woman who failed 12th grade twice (mostly due to failing the Science section of Louisiana's high school exit exam...here in California we take only English & Math in our exit exam). If her situation isn't bad enough, wait till you hear in that story about a 16-year-old boy who failed eighth grade twice; the reporter also asserted the existence of overage sixth- and seventh-grade students.

Whether in Communist China or Free-Speech America, "edgy" journalism like tabloids can ocassionally be eye-opener despite being general eye candy. It really depends on what the tabloid is covering, usually smearing public figures such as celebrities or politicians. But sometimes they're willing to cover where the MSM simply is too cowardly to go.

Tiananmen: The U.S. Media Coverage

Figures courtesy LexisNexis News search or if available the sites of the respective networks.

Television: CNN was the only network that managed to cover it; two separate mentions of the massacre occured on American Morning and CNN Newsroom later that day. LexisNexis searches produced absolutely no results for "Tiananmen" covered in the reports within June 4 or 5, 2008 from the following networks (be prepared to cover your eyes): ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, or NBC.

On PBS, though, things were a bit odd. Back on May 16, there was a brief mention of the 6/4/1989 incident in a story about china preparing for the olympics. On May 30 there was an interview with Hung Huang, the CEO of a Chinese Internet company called iLook, in which Chinese internet censorship of Tiananmen was discussed. But on the June 4, 2008 summary there was no room to mention Tiananmen, same happened back in 2007. But in 1999 the program did cover some sort of "10 years later" special report from Ian Williams of the British network ITN. Another full-story coverage could be found from 1997.

Print media:
- New York Times: There was an op-ed on June 4 and full story the following day.
- The Associated Press also filed a report regarding heavy security in Tiananmen; that was wired to numerous outlets including: San Francisco Chronicle; USA Today; Los Angeles Daily News; Salon.com; New York Times; and Seattle Post-Intelligencer; Washington Post; among countless others.

Foreign media:
- UK: BBC News filed a report by its reporter Vaudine England from its Hong Kong unit; that story covered the Hong Kong protests.
- Australia: The Herald Sun (from Melbourne, Victoria province) published a story on June 1 regarding an earlier Hong Kong protest. AFP reports came on Junes 3 and 4 on The Australian The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) network did file a report about China's denial
- Mainland China: No way possible due to Communist Censorship!!! BOOOOO!!!!!!!
- Hong Kong: Possibly, due to less censorship in HK, but I can't search the HK news sites since I can't search the Web in Chinese that well ><

Well what can I conclude out of all this? Apparantly, Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic Primaries was enough to shun anything else outta the way...in fact coverage of the upcoming 2008 olympics in the U.S. television media has gone down in recent weeks as priorities were given to domestic policies. Oh well...at least the media in other Anglospheric countries were still aware of the Tiananmen massacre from 6/4/1989! But within the U.S., it is just hypocritical that the same TV networks that devoted so much time to the torch relay & the "Free Tibet" confrontations suddenly pulled themselves out when the Tiananmen Day came along. Hopefully, when June 4, 2009 comes, being the 20th anniversary of the massacre, I wonder how the media will react? Stay tuned...

On this day in 1989...

June 4, 1989.

Oppressed Beijing University students demanding democracy in their tightly-governed, communist nation supposedly known as the "People's Republic of China". They were able to protest all the way until that very tragic day.

The Chinese Communist Government sent troops and tanks, killing thousands of innocent Chinese in the process.

Any sane person would think that this is an act of evil for which China owes an apology. But the result? Communist censorship press denial - you are able only to know about this incident if you have access to non-mainland China media. Try searching about Tiananmen square incident or June 4 or wherever on Google China, you get nothing.

Fast forward 19 years, June 4, 2008.

The Summer Olympics are coming to Beijing - the same city in which the bloody Tiananmen massacre took place.

Many people have shown concern over the Olympics taking place in a Communist country recently hurt by big snowstorms and an earthquake.

But the big story today is Barack Obama becoming the Democratic candidate for this year's U.S. presidential election. On today's ABC World News Tonight with Charles Gibson, the "Top Stories" lead segment has NO mention at all about Tiananmen...on the June 4 of the year of the Beijing Olympics!!

After watching the Obama story, I took out my parents' old videotape of the Koppel Report from ABC back in '89 and watched Ted Koppel's cutting-edge coverage of the weeks before and the day of the massacre, with all the shouting, night lights, tank fires, and bloody bodies and all that. I did the same back on the June 4 of 2004 and 2007. It is especially important to me since I'm mainland Chinese, and my parents (and the vast, vast majority of other Chinese Americans) came to America to seek freedoms that Communist China would never, ever, ever provide.

As the Olympics come in August, remember Tiananmen. Demand that China apologize for denying democracy.