Thread by @jinpeili

CCTV FOLLIES 1.19 CCTV and American militants

In the last two days, CCTV news has devoted considerable air time to anti-police protests in Memphis and other parts of the US. This is a valid news story, but certain problems crop up in CCTV's coverage.

The most obvious problem is hypocrisy. What otherwise might constitute a valid contribution and balanced news coverage by a billion dollar network stands out because CCTV refuses to cover any expression of dissent in China.

Hold up a sheet of blank paper in China?
It's jail-time

Then there's the cherry-picking of events.

All screen shots here are from Xinwen Lianbo, China's domestic news, which serves to instruct the Chinese masses about world events.

Last week's horrific incidents of mass shootings in California were completely absent from CCTV news.

There are several possible explanations:

-CCTV was focused on internal celebration during the New Year's holiday and had less air time for other things.
-Negative news would be inauspicious at such a time
-The shootings involved ethnic Chinese which complicated the narrative.

The Tyre Nichols case erupted just as the New Year's holiday was winding down, and CCTV was looking to up the daily America-bashing segment of the news.

CCTV "liked" the story enough to fly a crew to Tennessee to cover it with their own cameras.

CCTV also covered related protests in Washington and New York.

In Memphis, CCTV's camera crew took numerous shots of what appears to be a gathering crowd. A CCTV reporter tagged along, conducting a few man-on-the-street interviews.

If you look carefully at CCTV's coverage, nearly every shot includes a poster or banner by a group called PSL, or Party for Socialism & Liberation.

It is rather odd that nearly all Americans seen participating in this protest belong to, or chose to march under the banner of a self-styled socialist party.

Judging from CCTV framing of the coverage, socialists were at the core of the demonstration, both in Memphis and in NYC

CCTV's camera crew captures the arrival of the PLS marchers carrying yellow placards in New York City.

It's almost as if the CCTV camera crew was embedded with the PSL delegation, or had some kind of understanding with them, but it could be coincidence.

Maybe the cameraman, and the editors in Beijing, just liked seeing the words "socialism" and "liberation" on American signboards

(from PSL's "LIBERATION")

"Dmitry Medvedev remarked this week that “The defeat of a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger a nuclear war … Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts...All of humanity desperately needs the NATO powers to step back from the brink."

Party of Socialism and Liberation policy points:

PSL supports Putin in the war on Ukraine.
PSL supports China's support of Russia.
PSL lauds Xi Jinping's 20th party congress.
PSL denies the Tiananmen massacre
PLS claims zero human rights problem in Xinjiang.

Speaking of Ukraine, the same news program gives the latest update of Kremlin-approved news.
(video courtesy of Russia's Ministry of Defense)

The US sanctions are so unfair!!!

Argentine President Fernandez, here meeting with Germany's Scholz, says his country will never interfere in Ukraine by providing weapons like the US does:

"Such a thing never even occurred to us."

Brazil said pretty much the same thing, also in keeping with CCTV's "outrage" about US support for Ukraine.

And it's not just the US and UK. France and Italy are interfering by supplying Aster all-weather missiles.

The world outside China is rough and crude, in part because they lack proper guidance. CCTV news always opens on a positive note, highlighting a comment, gesture or old footage of paramount leader Xi.

You might say the Chinese grass is greener on CCTV.

Xi teaches farmers how to farm.
Xi teaches scientists how to make rockets.
Xi teaches factories how to use robots.

One reason America is such a mess is because it's lacking a polymath like Xi to run the country according to his personally cultivated esteem and wisdom.

If something good is happening in China, if the buildings are tall, the crops plentiful and the rockets are flying fast, it's because the secret juice is the CCP.

Powered by Xi Jinping thought and the spirit of the 20th party congress, China in the New Era is becoming more accomplished each and every day.

Oh! The motherland is already blessed by the first flowers of spring!

Which is why the foreign news is so jarring.

Pity the poor people who live in the US, UK and other countries beset by turmoil.

@threadreaderapp “unroll”