roy greenslade on china and tibet coverage

China launches attack on Tibet coverage

March 25, 2008 7:57 AM

China has sharply criticised foreign reporters over coverage of the riots in Tibet, accusing them of biased reporting. The front page of the weekend edition of China Daily, the English-language newspaper, said: “Riot reports show media bas in west.” Its website carried a report headlined Chinese experts condemn biased reports on Lhasa riot by western media.Meanwhile, the official Xinhua news agency released a report over the weekend suggesting that footage shown by CNN misrepresented the situation. A further report is headlined Foreigners in Tibet: Western media reports not conform with facts.

Though the government has been blocking foreign websites inside China and censoring foreign television broadcasts it has allowed Chinese sites, which are usually heavily censored for political content, to post attacks on foreign media coverage of Tibet.

Foreign journalists have been denied access to Tibet and are blocked from reaching neighbouring regions with large Tibetan populations. “At a time when China is promising to become more open with the world, this is a big disappointment,” said Jocelyn Ford, a freelance journalist in Beijing and chair of the media freedoms committee of the Foreign Correspondents Club.

To appease foreign reporters, Beijing told several journalists yesterday that a group of about 12 journalists would be able to travel to Lhasa for a special, government-guided tour of the city later this week. Whether they will be allowed to interview people independently is unclear. (Via International Herald Tribune)