Why and How EastSouthWestNorth is Biased

Fact: EastSouthWestNorth is biased.  The only questions are the why and how of it.

Let me start off by saying how it pains me to receive a friendly email that says something like: "EastSouthWestNorth is my main source of information about China.  I have set it as my home page, and I come here everyday the first thing in order to find out about what is really going on in China."  UGGGHHH!!!  No, if your only reading is EastSouthWestNorth, you will get a very peculiar and biased view of China!!!  I will admit it as such.

New York Times Editor Bill Keller spoke at the 2005 annual Association of National Advertisers conference: "Most of what you know, you know because of the mainstream media. Bloggers recycle and chew on the news. That's not bad. But it's not enough."  That will remain true.  At best, EastSouthWestNorth will be the supplementary reading in addition to the mainstream media.  However, I must make some distinctions among the different geo-political regions of Greater China (=mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan).  For the English-only reader, it is important to note that the mainstream English-language media are completely different in these regions, and therefore EastSouthWestNorth provides very different supplementary information accordingly.

MAINLAND CHINA

This is where the strength of the EastSouthWestNorth blog is right now.  I will begin by starting to examine the situation of an English-only reader who does not read Chinese.  What will you do to find news about China every day?  This must matter, because this century is supposed to belong to the new and rising China.

You go to the usual sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor and others from the United States; BBC, Financial Times, The Guardian and others from the United Kingdom; Sydney Morning Herald from Australia; news agencies such as Associated Press, Reuters, Knight Ridder, Interfax, AFP, and others; magazines such as Newsweek, Time, The Economist and others.  In each news source, you are apt to find limited coverage because there is only so much space that they can devote to China.  So a better strategy would be to have a favorite newspaper (e.g. New York Times if you live in New York City), and then use a news aggregator such as China Digital Times and Google News to catch up on all the other major news stories about China.

Great!  What is missing?  To invert Bill Keller's statement on its head: "Most of what you know about China comes from the western mainstream media.  However, China is a vast country with a population of 1.3 billion people, so you will only get a very brief glimpse of what is going on out there.  That's not bad.  But it's not enough."  What is missing?  The sum total of everything that is happening according to the tens of thousands of Chinese newspapers, websites, forums and blogs.  Among these, very few are in English (and you would not want to count on China Daily as the counterweight).  Rather, 99.9999% of the other information is written in Chinese.

Now I am someone who happens to read a lot of the Chinese-language media.  On each day, I attempt to translate the best stories and present them in one or two blog posts here as well as about five or so "brief comments."  I can categorize them as follows:

• For certain western media stories, I may tell you that this is inconsistent with or contrary to what is being said inside China while citing the specific missing information.  For example, is the reporting of avian flu being suppressed in China according to western media reports?  I will reference and translate some actual Chinese reports on the subject.
   
• For certain major Chinese breaking reports, I may be the first to cite local reports (such as The Fuzhou Bus Explosion) way before western mainstream media will (if ever).
   
• For certain complex stores that unfold over time with numerous personalities and developments, I can provide the full coverage collated from multiple sources coming from all sides (such as Taishi Village).  These stories are not easy for western mainstream media to report due to spatio-temporal restrictions (that is, your editor will only give you 1,500 words for one day; and you will not be able to file a report on the latest developments once every three or four days because the readers cannot remember the cast of characters or the historical developments).

Yet, it is clear that I am selective in what I report and that entails a limited and subjective judgment.  My personal interests are in media, culture, society and micro-politics, and I am mostly missing in action in military, law, macro-economics, national/international politics, etc.  So while ESWN can provide some interesting reading, you must not mistake this as the full and complete picture of the vast country known as China.

Still, upon information and belief, the EastSouthWestNorth blog is hot right now among the 'China hands', as some western media workers regard the blog as a good source of ideas for new stories that comes from the Chinese-language media/blogosphere.  It is also a major source of annoyance to them if the blogger complains about a particular piece of coverage because their colleagues, bosses and peers are reading it.  Whether the EastSouthWestNorth blog influences a mass base is quite doubtful.  But this is where we are right now.  

HONG KONG

Again, I will begin by starting to examine the situation of an English-only reader interested in Hong Kong.  What will you do to find news about Hong Kong every day?  I imagine that you will peruse the two major local English-language dailies: South Morning China Post (subscription required) and The Standard.  Beyond those two, Hong Kong appears only occasionally in the western mainstream media.  What are you getting?  Politically speaking, both SCMP and The Standard can be characterized as centrist.  Do you suppose that SCMP and The Standard is giving you a fair and balanced account of what is happening in Hong Kong?  You must be joking!

As a morning routine, I begin my reading with SCMP and The Standard and I try to remember the major stories of interest according to them.  Then I zip through the eight major local online newspapers (Apple Daily, Ming Pao, Sing Pao, Sing Tao, Oriental Daily, The Sun, Tai Kung Pao, Wen Wei Po) that span the entire political spectrum.  In addition, I read the print copies of magazines such as Eastweek, Next Magazine, Yazhou Zhoukan, Ming Pao Weekly and Ming Pao Monthly.

When all said and done, this is what I tend to report on EastSouthWestNorth:

• Suppose there is a report of survey/poll results.  As a professional survey researcher, I may find the particular survey/poll to be deplorably inadequate, or else the presentation and interpretation of the results be woeful.  This is when I get into the axe-swinging mode. 
   
• It is all supposed to be the same story, but how can the headlines from the various newspapers be so different?  (e.g., see Headlines for a Hong Kong Poll)  I know that newspapers are constrained by the length of the headlines (say, 10 or 15 words in Chinese), but why did they choose these words instead of some others?  The exercise will hopefully remind the readers that their regular newspapers are potentially biased as revealed by the choice of headlines.
   
• It is all supposed to be the same story, but how can the coverage from the various newspapers be so different?  (e.g., see Warm-up Demonstration for WTO-MC6)  Were these reporters present at the same event?  That is when my mailbox gets stuffed with excuses from the respective reporters, but of course they always qualify that the content of their communication are not to be disclosed to the public ... so the rest of the world is missing some interesting background activity.
   
• The stories are reported only in the Chinese-language media, but not in the English-media.  For example, there are the stories filed by the paparazzis from Next Magazine and Eastweek on the Nancy Kissel case.  More often, though, the stories are much more mundane.  According to a member of the English-only media, unless a story involves a famous person who died or at least suffered serious injury, it won't be reported!  By contrast, I am quite willing to focus on a story about a pile of human feces (see Newspaper Reading For School Assignment).
   
  Somewhere, I think the English-only reader should be aware that this is One System, Two Cultures.  That other culture happens to constitute 95% of the population and one had better get a pulse on what matters to them.  Among the most strongest feedback that I have ever received is about how upset some English-only readers get about some of these translated stories, in that they found the reports to be inaccurate and/or intrusive.  They may even demand that my posts be withdrawn.  To my mind, that is putting the blinders on.  If the particular news report (usually accompanied by gory photos) had already appeared in the Chinese media such as Apple Daily (circulation ~350,000), Oriental Daily (circulation ~550,000), Ming Pao (circulation ~100,000), Metro (circulation ~400,000), Headline News (circulation ~750,000) and others, how can we pretend that no one will know if only I could delete my blog post?  Millions of Chinese-language readers already know about it, but somehow the English-only world thinks that the information could still be bottled up by obliterating my blog post!
   
• This blog is also known to relay some highly unpopular political views, which are often mistaken for the blogger's own viewpoints.  Who do you blame?  If only South China Morning Post and The Standard can articulate those same viewpoints, you would not have to see them here.  At some point, for example, the English-only reader will need to be reminded that 20% of the population in Hong Kong are fervently 'patriotic' as represented in newspapers such as Tai Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po.  Furthermore, those views may be aligned with those of the central government as well as the China-related businesses.  Such views are usually only scorned at in the English-only media.  Since we all share the same earth at this time, we had better learn how to live with each others' viewpoints, and you can't begin to do this until you know about those other viewpoints.

TAIWAN

Now we come to the most misunderstood part of EastSouthWestNorth.  There is no doubt that this explanation will generate even more complaints, and I have no expectation that this will mollify the critics.

Again, I will begin by starting to examine the situation of an English-only reader interested in Taiwan.  What will you do to find news about Taiwan every day?  There is little news in the western mainstream media, unless something extraordinary happens (such as yet another brawl in the Taiwan Legislature).  If you get on Google and check on Taiwan, the major source of information is likely to be the English-language Taipei Times.  With lesser frequency and volume is the staid China post.  If you go to Asia Media, Taipei Times is their main source from Taiwan too.  Do you think that you get a fair, accurate and balanced presentation of what is going on in Taiwan?  You must be out of your mind.

If you can read Chinese, you will find out that the media leaders in Taiwan are Liberty Times, Apple Daily, China Times, United Daily News and a whole bunch of cable television channels such as TVBS, ETTV, Era TV, FTV and so on.  Liberty Times is the sister publication of Taipei Times, and therefore its viewpoints are adequately represented to the English-only world via Taipei Times.  The rest of the media are simply missing in action in English.  So what EastSouthWestNorth is trying do here is to translate what appears in those other Chinese-language media.  Most of the translated stories come straight from Apple Daily, China Times and UDN.  Typically, they can be classified as follows:

• Social stories (especially from Apple Daily) complete with photographs and graphic illustrations.  You will never ever get that from Taipei Times.  Somewhere, we have to note that Apple Daily dominates the youth segment of the market and this is where the future is going.  The political message is that the young people are not interested in politics-as-usual-by-color, so the same old tired political tripe is not working for them.  Anyone who ignores this fact is doomed to extinction over time.
   
• Political stories that reflect the sharp divisions in Taiwan.  According to the relentlessly pan-green Taipei Times, everything is the fault of the other side.  What is the story from the other side?  You won't get that other story in the English-only media.  This is where EastSouthWestNorth can get you some direct translations from Apple Daily, China Times, UDN and TVBS about some (but definitely not all) major developments, and this will give this some sense of the contentiousness.  
   
  It is unfortunate that some people would take these straight translations as representations of the EastSouthWestNorth blogger's own opinions.  Instead, I ask you to consider: 
  (1) those opinions were expressed in Apple Daily, China Times and UDN, which have the majority of newspaper circulation in Taiwan (note: Liberty Times is the market leader, but the other three have larger combined circulation);
  (2) those newspapers obtain their circulations because their readers generally accept their editorial positions and opinions; 
  (3) do those opinions receive the same weight if you google in English on the same story?
  (4) if not, then who is going to redress that imbalance?

The EastSouthWestNorth blogger does not necessarily want to do it, but does anyone else want to do it?  If so, this blogger will happily relinquish his unrewarding role.  The blogger will also lay this particular hypothetical scenario on the table: if Taipei Times were actually the sister newspaper of China Times and reflect the pan-blue viewpoint, the EastSouthWestNorth blogger would be translating from Liberty Times instead.