Dope, who didn't breathe a word about the protests, aside from a few deleted tweets, until he could copy MoFA's words, uses a nationalist rag that answers directly to China's Ministry of Propaganda to complain about censorship.
Stop. Stop. The IRONY. π
"Andy was offered the job as a full-time journalist"
No he wasn't. π
Reminder. When 5 police bundled a real journalist to the ground for covering the protestsβthe most physical act of censorship you can findβAndy was a few blocks away, in his bedroom, deleting his own own tweets.
China state media network CCTV quietly released their annual Social Responsibility report on Saturday, where they apologised for "shortcomings"βbut committed to "do a good job of Leader propaganda"
Don't worry. I read it, so you don't have to~ π
So. You might have noticed, CCTV staff have spent recent years grumbling they somehow.. *gasp*.. take instructions from Beijing, or lack editorial independence.
Thus. You'd expect them to delicately tip-toe around political affiliation, right? Media integrity, yes..?
.. Nope.
President Xi pops up literally in Point 1: Sentence 1 π€
("Always insisted". Fun Fact: CCTV first aired in 1958 when Xi was 5)
It's sad. When I first started working in Chinese state media, was shocked at the low level, lack of professional skills, lack of wider intl knowledge.
And staff trying to impress bosses, who are entombed in old era thinking.
The vast majority of staff I met had no media experience. Hired as they'd done an English degree, or a Masters abroad.
(Aside from presenters - who nearly all came from a single course at Communications Uni, Beijing where you're taught to read a teleprompter and look pretty.)
Think about that..
+no media experience
+no production experience
+no degrees based on critical thought
+practically zero have commercial media experience i.e. Experience of working in a results-based environment
.. But you DO get points if you're a Party member. So.. β¨