media - Confusing news on China’s internet cafe’s

(Later in Tidbits)

Looking behind the news from China is revealing, as it shows how Chinese and Western media use the same techniques in sanitizing the news, be it with different agenda’s. The news from AP that China has closed down more than 8,600 internet cafes fits the classical image of China as a repressive force, cracking down on free speech. The main source of confusion: AP cuts and past the news of the official state news agency Xinhua and squeezes it into an angle that it considers fit for Western consumption.

Xinhua brings the same news but from an official Chinese perspective: internet cafes that do not stick to the law and allow juveniles in will be closed down. The government is a benign father that takes care of its children, it their message.

Nobody knows what really has happened. It seems likely that Xinhua has been hustling some rather unreliable figures to push out a politically correct message. AP uses the same dubious figures to bring another message. Both can be qualified as propaganda. The ministry of culture - the origin of the news - is one of the more hapless sections of China's bureaucracy that often has to prove its existence by using empty propaganda.