Phil Cunningham Profile picture
Apr 24 11 tweets 5 min read
CCTV FOLLIES: April 25 am

The news on Ukraine today starts out with a threat:

Russian Defense Spokesman Igor Konasenkov offers stern warning.

-Russia will continue to attack NATO weapons supply points wherever they are, as was done in Odessa.

@Byron_Wan
#TGTM #China #Russia
-"Russia is within it's legal right to do so."
Russia says there will be "untold consequences for NATO, and the US, if the supply of weapons to Ukraine continues."
It's somehow appropriate to the pro-Kremlin editorial line of CCTV that stock footage of government buildings in Moscow are routinely used as filler material on Russia-Ukraine stories.
A Chinese-labelled map and Russian Defense footage are used to illustrate Russia's "justified" attack on Odessa.

It's a rather sanitized view of Russian destruction.
Also note there's no boundary between Russian-controlled Crimea and as yet unvanquished Odessa.
Compare the above with Odessa on-the-ground footage (not included by CCTV) of a bombed apartment building in Odessa. A cruise missile killed a young mother and her baby along with six neighbors in a Russian attack that was singled out by Zelensky for its gratuitous barbarity.
April 25 news update:

Maria Zakharova at the Russian Foreign Ministry says Western economic pressure is having no effect...
...and Russia is adjusting its economy accordingly.
Zakharova says the US is warning of a Russian chemical attack which actually means that the US is preparing for precisely this kind of attack and is moving forward with it.
No evidence is offered, but insinuations are made with pictures of a vehicle and some storage tanks.
The "slam dunk" of Zakharova's innuendo is a headline ripped from Foreign Affairs about the possibility of Russian biological or chemical attacks

This reflects the time-proven propaganda technique of mirroring accusations of the other side, muddling things to muddy the waters.
In other news, a Japanese boat carrying 26 people has sunk off Hokkaido and more then 36 US states have seen an increase in Covid infection rates.

Pro-tip: Some one should tell CCTV announcer Liu Miaoran that it is not necessary to force a smile during every minute of the news.

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More from @jinpeili

Apr 26
Lin Zhibao, chief of the People’s Daily, Sichuan Bureau, has written a real whopper of a rant defending China's support of Russia in Ukraine.

Predictably he cites Nazis and Nato, Jews and the US, but there's more, much more.

David Cowhig's original post:
gaodawei.wordpress.com/2022/04/26/lin… Image
"Thoughtfulness" was published 2022-04-24.

David Cowhig points out that "public intellectuals" are among targets of blame, yet one truly mourns the loss of their influence if this piece is indicative of the second-rate claptrap that has replaced thoughtful debate in China. Image
The author sees in the Ukraine quagmire a hopeful extension of "China’s strategic opportunity period."

"Due to the sanctions and embargoes imposed by the US and the West on Russia, the vacated Russian market space will be conducive to China’s development of overseas markets"
Read 25 tweets
Apr 25
CCTV-1 News pop quiz for April 26

What gets the young people of Beijing whipped up into a frenzy the likes of which haven't been seen since the Cultural Revolution? Image
Panic-buying? Well-stocked supermarkets?
Fresh vegetables? All good guesses. A cloud of fear hovers over Beijing, fearful of getting the Shanghai treatment.
Close, but not quite. Image
People's University students expectantly line the road to campus hoping for a dream come true. ImageImage
Read 24 tweets
Apr 25
AMERICA'S DARK HEGEMONY
A brief summary of CCTV's WORLD WEEKLY documentary, re-broadcast on April 25.
It's got some current Ukraine news, but it goes deep, buttressing CCTV's anti-US editorial line with history tidbits and a firm belief in the imminent demise of "peak USA." Image
The show is a cut above the nightly news for two reasons. The host had a role in writing it and he tries to put things in context.
Shui Junyi is a journalist. Famous in the 1990's for covering the Gulf War and other foreign conflicts, he also hosted the popular show FOCAL POINT. Image
During the Sochi Olympics in 2014, intrepid roving reporter Shui Junyi secured a prestigious journalistic "get" when he scored an interview with president-what's-his-name. Image
Read 15 tweets
Apr 23
CCTV FOLLIES: April 24
A relatively light news day for CCTV purveyors of the Kremlin line on Ukraine, but toxic anyway.
It's still a conflict with no context, and no blame on Russia for invading.
It's still a military operation, not a war.
"Fighting intensifies in East Ukraine." Image
The CCTV weekend news reader presents reports of Russian progress unironically, even though the pictures are at odds with the "good" news from the front with the pacification of Mariupol. Image
Mariupol sees life "return to normal," (正常化) as street life returns and shopping is possible again.

(note: every building is charred, all but one vehicle is torched.) ImageImage
Read 10 tweets
Apr 22
CCTV FOLLIES: April 23 AM

Putin gets a double win in China's telling of the day's news. On the one hand, his special military operation has succeeded in "restoring order" to Mariupol, on the other hand he's protecting Ukrainian citizens. Image
Putin moves the goalposts. Again.
First he said he had no intentions of taking territory. Then it was just the Donbas. Now he says he'll take the south of Ukraine in addition to the Donbas. Is Odessa next?
Anything else? Image
Unmasked invasion enthusiast has his facial features carefully blurred, while the masked soldier is presumably sufficiently anonymized. Image
Read 5 tweets
Apr 21
CCTV FOLLIES, April 22
The top world news story of the day is the "liberation" of Mariupol by Russian forces.

As per previous practice, CCTV shows Ukraine as an amorphous mass without borders. Image
In trying to unpack CCTV's weird borderless Ukraine map, it's helpful to look at what Google Maps provides for the same terrain. Crimea gets a dotted line, it's not an agreed upon international boundary, and the Donbas gets no recognition at all.
@DemesDavid @polijunkie_aus @Dimi Image
If we go back to the same kind of map before the Russian invasion of Crimea --this one from February 2014, just weeks before Russia unilaterally changed the "map"-- there is not as much as a dotted line.

Crimea is shown on this map to be an integral part of Ukraine. Image
Read 6 tweets

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