AL-JAZEERA’S MAN IN CHINA BLASTS CHINESE COVERAGE OF LIBYA

Al-Jazeera’s bureau chief in Beijing has posted a lengthy essay on his personal blog condemning Chinese news coverage of the revolt in Libya and the Western response to it. Writing in Chinese, Ezzat Shahrour said that the Chinese media have continued to present a one-sided picture of the conflict, presenting the opinions of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi and his supporters but rarely those of the rebels. Television broadcasts show the wreckage caused by NATO air strikes but fail to show Gaddafi’s cruelty towards his own people, Shahrour observed. “I just don’t see what the point is of [Chinese] media spending so much money to prepare their journalists to go to a dangerous place like Libya when all these reporters do is simultaneous interpretation in China of Gaddafi’s own television station. Can’t this sort of news coverage be done just as well from Beijing?” Since it was posted on April 15, Shahrour’s essay has been read more than 100,000 times and has generated more than 1,400 comments, the Post said. One reader posted this response: “In China, there is no news, but only propaganda.”