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

Jan 14, 2023, 8 tweets

CCTV FOLLIES 1.14 What's not happening?
What's not happening on CCTV?
-No news of Russia's vicious attack on Dnipro.
-No news about the pandemic infecting hundreds of millions
-No news of Covid casualties
-No interviews with workers or ordinary Chinese.
Just faceless agitprop.

Russian TV news clips take viewers inside "Russia's" occupied zone.
Moscow asserts that they've won battle of Soledar

Covid "optimization':
Elsewhere, China's PR wizards have pulled a number out of the hat "admitting" 59,938 Covid deaths.
But even that grossly low-balled number is not mentioned on CCTV news
Instead we see PR of doctors making house calls on old people and quiet, orderly clinics

CCTV has so much air time to burn that no detail is too small if it's colored...red. We are treated to scores of happy scenes of happy people on holiday in China
What not to be happy about?

In contrast, the US is a deeply unhappy place. To drive home this point, CCTV floods the zone with scenes of the US in steep decline, which on January 14, 2023 means a trifecta of devastating floods, violent tornadoes and rampant homelessness.

If the news review is short today it's because the fat has been cut.
(Xi scenes, Xi moments, Xi aphorisms...all excised.) Lengthy segments touting CCP success not included. Hoary exhortations to struggle and toil in keeping with Xi's "inspirational" slogans have been cut.

In other words, not much happened between the opening and closing credits of CCTV's flagship news program.

Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.

A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.

Keep scrolling