Phil Cunningham Profile picture
金培力 CCTV FOLLIES at https://t.co/Ytx660bYM5 Fulbright, Knight, Nieman Fellow. @jinpeili.bsky.social @jinpeili@ieji.de

Dec 3, 2022, 26 tweets

CCTV FOLLIES 12.03 Gold and silver in the hills...
News mostly fresh out of the can, but some of the images are pretty.
-Nation mourns, Foreigners send condolences
-China is beautiful. It's an environmental wonderland
-Russia pipeline penetrates Yangtze
-Russia makes war

Chinese remember Jiang at home...
Foreign leaders phone it in.
(foreigners not invited to funeral ceremonies)

The authoritative flagship news program devotes the middle section entirely to pretty pictures.

Airing canned news gives a break to tired staffers overworked from covering, and covering up, the news of recent days.

Someone high up at CCTV likes birds.
Remember, CCTV's surname is "party"
It's the mouth of the party.

Perhaps the nature shots are meant as palette cleanser for a populace weary and wary of real news.

It's like a page out of "China Reconstructs"

Clean, obedient children draw beautiful pictures of a pristine land.

Even the cities are green, sort of.
Sure, Beijing has a lot of buildings and few trees, but don't forget, it has the world's biggest Bird's Nest.

And don't forget the Yellow River. It's like a coiled dragon. Properly tamed, as it is under Xi, it is capable of bestowing the mandate of heaven.

Autumn mists, autumn leaves.
Pandas and tigers at play.

It's an ecological wonderland, except maybe for the sheep.
Lamb kebabs are popular in Beijing

And speaking of harmony with nature, taming those wild rivers really makes for a very wonderful kind of synergy between man and nature.

(environmental scientists might disagree, but I digress)

Adding to China's green vision of itself are cargo ships, trains, planes and more trains.

True, nature must be subject to some sacrifices, but Chairman Xi Jinping has solved the age-old conundrum of development.

"Green water and green mountains are mountains of gold and silver" (TM)

Indeed

The pictures speak for themselves...

Even when the juxtapositions don't make much sense.

And now, in other breaking stories...

The spirit of the 20th party congress is being realized at the local level!

You see, as we learned from the report of the 20th, just as Xi Jinping says....

Shanghai? Wasn't there some commotion there recently?

Yes there was. Young people are flocking to indoctrination sessions to learn about Xi's teachings.

The 20th Party Congress, a gift that keeps on giving.

We are guided by the spirit of the 20th, blah, blah blah
As party secretary Xi says...blah, blah, blah

Even the Macao casino magnates and their staffers are getting in on the act. An opulent ballroom is used for an indoctrination session.

And then, in what perhaps constitutes the first genuine news story of the day. Shenzhou 15 is docked with the Tiangong space station.

And another small news item.
The latest Covid stats.

Lots of confusion about the new policy, but you won't hear it here.

And the uplifting news of learning that the new Sino-Russia gas pipeline has penetrated China's south via a massive tunnel dug under the Yangtze River.
So green...

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