Bingfeng Teahouse

via: pjnet

Witt: What is the black and white perception of China? Is it good or bad? How does it manifest itself?

Gifford: My sense is that there is a lot of lingering sense that China is Bad - it is run by a Communist Party which does Bad Things and could possibly be A Threat to the world. These things may be true (I have seen evidence of them in six years living in China) but it is not quite that simple - you cannot say China is any more good, any more bad than you can say the US is 'good' or 'bad.' In the past it WAS mostly bad, because the Communist Party had various very bad policies, but it is much more gray now, and much less black and white - it can manifest itself in the language of the reports that can be very emotive and suggestive.

Witt: Do think the news media, especially here in the West can report the gray areas? If so how, what advice would you have? After all you have been reporting on China for six years.

Gifford: Of course. There are dozens of us out there (here) who report the gray areas - we report bad things and good things and things that are good and bad, and things that are good amidst a sea of bad, and bad amidst a sea of good. You simply can't take as your starting point that a country is BAD and so everything that goes on there is BAD - my advice would be get reporters out in the field. Of course an editor in New York cannot report the gray areas and tends to be influenced by whatever images he/she has in his/her mind, but reporting means getting people on the ground to report it as they see it.

not many as sharp as this guy, i have to say

Witt: How about the White House, what it says gets reported, often as fact. That of course influences perception. So this a dual question. Does the present administration understand the dynamics of China? If not, what's a reporter covering them to do?

Gifford: Ha, what a question. how much do any of us (even those of us covering China for years on end ) understand? But...yes, this is the danger, sometimes what the White House says is reported as fact, not as....'what the White House says'. So you simply have to present it as 'the White House says X' and get the other side of the argument. The Chinese Embassy should always be consulted, even if we happen to agree with what the White House said. It's pretty basic journalism really - consult both sides, present both sides, and THEN allow the listener, viewer, reader to make up their own mind...On top of that, of course White House reporters must ask difficult questions. If the White House spokesman/president makes a comment that needs challenging, it must be challenged - the weird thing is that it is all so basic, such basic journalism. Is it just since 9.11 that some of the basics of journalism have gone out the window? Or was it happening before that ?

we chinese already know that many years ago

Witt: I want to go back to an earlier answer. You said "relatively unbiased foreign reporting (is) perceived by some to be the 'liberal media' and (is) treated as such." How did you deal with this? What’s you advice to other reporters?

Gifford: My advice is always to just go on reporting the facts - you can't stoop to the level of people who politicize the news and say that because you say, for instance, the Chinese government did something that many Chinese people support (Shock Horror!!) that you are a communist...the main thing is to make sure you are CORRECT in your reporting - then they can't stand up their allegations, and they are exposed (though not always) for the ideologues with their own agenda (left or right) that they actually are - the problem is though, of course, that there are lots of pre-disposed ideologues in their audience who will simply believe them...there's not much you can do about that.

Witt: So, you probably know as much about China as any Westerner. What's your advice to editors everywhere and I, might add, to the audiences?

Gifford: Not sure I know that much, but my advice to editors is not to play down what their reporters should be reporting (I can't believe I even have to say that) and just to let reporters say the truth, the facts, even if that doesn't fit with our stereotypes - otherwise we might as well all pack up and go home, we are simply not doing our jobs as reporters and editors. To audiences, of course, I would also say, think for yourself, and be aware that the media (sadly) is not always objective - and CERTAINLY don't always take what your government says (whatever nationality you are) as gospel.

unfortunately most china reportings happened in an opposite way.

Witt: So much of the world's future depends on the West's relationships to China. However, given our biases, and theirs, and the complexities of the story, can Western journalists ever hope to get it right? And if they don't, what are the consequences?

Gifford: Well, journalists are of course all human beings and very imperfect - we all have our own prejudices etc, which we try to minimize in our reporting. But China is a singularly difficult story to tell because there is SO MUCH good and SO MUCH bad all happening simultaneously - so which is real? Answer: they both are - we should of course be asking the questions such as 'Is China a threat?' but the problem is when we cross the line from putting forward the views of both sides and clearly tilt our reports one way or the other - certainly, if we keep going on about China being a threat in our reports, many people (including in government) will believe it, and act accordingly with government policy, and there is a danger of it becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy -maybe it is true. But we need to assess that from the facts, put objectively, not from some skewed reporting that some editor has determined must add up to a report that presents China (or anywhere) in a particular light.

great interview