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

Mar 2, 2023, 22 tweets

CCTV FOLLIES 3.2 Red flag trigger alert

-First ten minutes a bitter sea of turgid words
-Red flags aflutter everywhere.
-CCP must be doing something right.
-China blossoms, and flowers do too.
-Special military operation
-Nord Stream
-Ohio

"The Political Bureau and the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and members of the leading Party members groups of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, the State Council...blah, blah, blah..."

...and the National Committee of the Chinese People's.. Political Consultative Conference, the nation's top political advisory body have recently submitted work reports to the CPC Central Committee and Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee..."

One can only stand in awe of the staid state TV announcers who can issue this kind of piffle with hyper correct pronunciation and a straight face.

Xi's name comes up a hundred times today, and his folksy formulas and pithy words dominate the script.

But even the commissars agree; turgid communist propaganda goes down better with a spoonful of sugar and lots of artificial red.

Of course, this is a news program, so you don't take the leader, even an exalted one, at his word
(oh yes you do)
but anyway, some testimonial to emphasize the complete correctness of Xi's views.

And some more technicolor red to prove that Xi is nothing if not a communist and the communists are nothing if not red.

"It is imperative that we acquiesce to the demands of the Chairman"
"It's a huge responsibility, our glorious mission."

In other news, and this is sadly deceptive news for millions of unemployed recent graduates, CCTV claims job-hunting prospects are bright, as you can see in youth lining up for jobs and in the views of happy workers below.

Spring continues to blossom across the motherland. (trigger warning) Inspirational quotes follow:
"It's the first time I've been to such a pretty cherry blossom garden"
"With the blossoming of spring, flowers blossom!"
"I'm so pretty, feeling pretty, goody, goody, beauty-beauty"

Trains, grains and happy, gainfully employed minorities in full traditional garb...

Update on Ukraine from Russian Ministry of Defense

"Russia shoots down Ukrainian military craft, Ukraine attacks an ammo depot."

A man identified as Li-ya-bu-ke-fu (Rybakov?) explains the dilemma:
US adds fuel to fire by aiding Ukraine

Kudos to the DC-based CCTV cameraman for getting a deeply symbolic shadow of the American flag casting some serious shade on the State Department.

Echoing CCTV, an "American personage" says:
"US should stop stoking the flames in the conflict!"

CCTV goes Cyrillic!
(surely English is vexing enough)
Interesting to see a story posted entirely in Russian, but perhaps it's a sign of the times.

Here the gist of the Russian breeze seems to be:
Russia spokesperson Maria Zakharova says German Ambassador to Russia, Geza Andreas von Geyr, publicly avoids responding to those responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines.

The Nord Stream story is being kept warm and bubbling on a low simmer at CCTV

And the forgotten people of Ohio should be heartened to know that China cares about them and CCTV continues to air their plight.

CCTV can still pull English language news out of the hat when it wants to drive home point.
(English splashed on screen usually has the ulterior purpose of stressing what the supposedly unreliable Western media are saying.)

And that's a wrap!

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