Posted by Still wondering how biased our media and reporters are? Well, lets just see how they go about reporting something simple and factual like numbers in a crowd. You may remember when Trump was inaugurated as president in 2017, the media was filled with reports showing how much smaller the crowds were than for Obama in his 2009 inauguration. The New York Times even wrote an entire piece titled, “Trump’s Inauguration vs. Obama’s: Comparing the Crowds” citing “Keith Still, a professor at Manchester Metropolitan University in England, estimates that the crowd on the National Mall on Friday was about one-third the size of Mr. Obama’s. Professor Still was a crowd safety consultant for the 2011 royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and has advised the Saudi government on crowds for the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.”
A simple online search will show that most media outlets decided to go with a photo like the one below taken from the Washington Monument to illustrate how much Obama was beloved and how much Trump is detested.
Very few went with the obverse view, or the view from where the ceremonies actually took place at the Capitol; which looked like this:
So it is clear that the media is fully capable of making estimates and calling in experts to confirm or at least give some legitimacy to numbers that they quote… if they want to. But when they don’t want to or if the numbers don’t suit their particular agenda, they hide behind exculpatory statements like “unconfirmed” or “unofficial”.
So when Iranian television reports millions turning out for Soleimani’s funeral in Tehran, it become “Thousands” when CNN reports on it (see caption and picture below). Or as the BBC reports, “State television showed huge crowds in Tehran for the event. It put the number who turned out as “millions” although this is yet to be verified.” The question then becomes can something like this actually be verified? If so, will it ever be verified? If verified, will you actually go back and change your reporting to reflect this? Yeah, I didn’t think so. But the difference between thousands and millions is pretty big and very significant if you are to accurately assess and gauge what the reality is on the ground in a place thousands of miles away.
So one can only guess that the Western media bias is in full swing when the BBC headlines, “Hong Kong protest: ‘Nearly two million’ join demonstration” in reference to a 16 July 2019 protest. “Nearly two million people have taken part in a mass protest in Hong Kong against a controversial extradition bill, organisers say. If confirmed, it would be the largest protest in Hong Kong’s history. Police said turnout was 338,000 at its peak.” Once again we get a weasel exculpatory statement like “if confirmed” as if that were even possible.
In this particular case, CNN seems to have gotten it right by reporting that, “Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Hong Kong for the second consecutive Sunday, despite a move by the city’s embattled leader to suspend a controversial extradition bill. Organizers of Sunday’s march said around 2 million people took part, a substantial increase on the 1.03 million claimed last week and against expectations of lower turnout following violent scenes outside the legislature on Wednesday. Police said 338,000 people took part Sunday.”
So who should you believe? Anyone who has lived in Hong Kong should be crying bullshit when they see numbers like two million. There are only 7.4m people in Hong Kong and on Hong Kong Island itself, the population is 1.3m. I doubt you could even pack 2m people on the narrow street from Causeway Bay to Central where the protesters marched even if you tried.
Fortunately, a more accurate and empirical number can garnered from researchers in AI. The SCMP reports that, “Hong Kong start-up behind protest crowd-counting using AI to estimate subway wait times, detect gas leaks… C&R’s crowd counting technology came into the public spotlight after the annual July 1 protest march in Hong Kong. Teaming up with Paul Yip, social sciences professor at Hong Kong University, and Edwin Chow, a geography researcher from Texas State University, Wong and his team set up three iPad cameras on Percival Street in Causeway Bay and four more on Arsenal Street in Wan Chai… Wong’s project concluded that 265,000 people joined the protest on July 1, while organisers said 550,000 people marched and the police estimated it was 190,000.”
But even this is not the whole truth. The police estimates are based on what they say is “peak” turnout whereas the AI count is a tally of the total number of people who marched during the whole procession during the entire length of the protest including anyone who just might have been in the area. So in a sense, they are not exactly counting the same things. However, you will notice that the discrepancy is not massive between the police estimate and the empirical AI count and much of the difference can be attributed to the difference in what they are measuring anyway. One can also conclude that the numbers released by the so-called democratic organisers are simply bullshit designed to grab media attention by assigning a huge number that the hapless and ignorant “fact checking” journalists of the fourth estate just then parrot in their headlines.
“FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing media practices that marginalize public interest, minority and dissenting viewpoints. As an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected news stories and defend working journalists when they are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources of information”.
How biased is Western reporting about Hong Kong? Well, here’s a great article from FAIR With People in the Streets Worldwide, Media Focus Uniquely on Hong Kong which is a follow up on a previous article, “The Revolution Isn’t Being Televised: Media uninterested in protest movements around the world“. The articles themselves are worth reading as a quick insight into why Western media is so biased in its coverage of Hong Kong
“This enormous disparity cannot be explained by the other protests’ size or significance, nor the severity of the repression meted out by security services. After barely a week’s worth of turmoil, the death toll in Ecuador was eight, according to that government’s own Human Rights Defender, while the UN confirms that 42 Haitians have been killed in the last two months alone. And in Chile, where right-wing President Sebastian Piñera literally declared war on the population, sending tanks through the streets, 26 have died and over 26,000 have been arrested. In contrast, no one has died at the hands of the Hong Kong security forces, although one protester died after falling from a building, and a 70-year-old man was killed by a brick thrown by protesters, both deaths occurring in November after months of demonstrations. “
“Demonstrators in Hong Kong are almost universally referred to as “pro-democracy protesters” (e.g. CNN, 8/30/19, 10/15/19; New York Times, 10/15/19, 11/21/19), whereas the protests rocking Chile were commonly denigrated as “riots” (e.g., CNN, 10/19/19) or “looting and arson” (New York Times, 10/19/19). Likewise, the violence of the Ecuadorian protestors was constantly emphasized (e.g., New York Times, 10/9/19; CNN, 10/8/19). The “wrath of labor and transport unions,” CNN (10/9/19) told us, was “unleashed” as “violent protests have raged” in Quito, and protestors held military members hostage.”
“This sort of language is rarely used with regards to the Hong Kong protesters, even when it is arguably more applicable. In addition to widespread property damage and the aforementioned bricking of a retiree, protestors recently doused another elderly man in flammable liquid and set fire to him on camera. He spent more than ten days in a coma.”
More to the point, media bias is certainly not uniquely an American phenomenon. As this SCMP opinion piece, “What’s good journalism? When it agrees with you” points out in a leaked behind the scenes argument at HK01 between the boss Yu Pun Hoi and one of his reporters:
Yu: But who vandalised our company car? The blue or yellow camp?
Reporter: No one knows because the investigation is not finished.
Yu: If I remember correctly, our own reporters saw them vandalising our own car. Is that right?
Reporter: I wasn’t there physically. I can’t answer you.
Yu: Well, I will tell you because it’s true. It wasn’t attacked by the blue, but the yellow ones. It wasn’t blue forces that were interfering with your reporting work; it was black-clad individuals. Are we at the stage now that if black-clad individuals interfere with us, we will behave like good boys?
Yu (continues): Let me ask you about those shops on Nathan Road being vandalised, such as Best Mart 360 and Starbucks. They were “decorated”. Was such behaviour legal?
Reporter: It’s not up to me to decide.
Yu: What? It’s not up to you to decide?
Reporter: Of course! I am only responsible for reporting the true state of affairs.
Yu: So what is the truth?
Reporter: The truth is that a shop was vandalised.
Yu: Is such “vandalism” legal or illegal?
Reporter: It’s not for me to decide. A reporter should not make such decisions/judgments.
Yu: Are you joking?
Yes dear readers, that’s the level of the quality and professionalism of so-called local journalists and reporters in Hong Kong today. When you add that level of bias in official media with the outright lies spread by social media; it becomes clear that nobody has a clue about what the truth really is. Then when we wring that mess of misinformation through the filtered bias of Western media, it’s not surprising that the black-clad, face-covered hooligans and thugs that are destroying the city, attacking citizens who don’t agree with them, and basically terrorising the population suddenly and miraculously morph into “aggressive non-violent” (a New York Times term) peace-loving democratic freedom fighters whereas the police become “the instrument of violent and brutal oppression of a fascist dictatorship”.
The simple truth is that the Hong Kong protests and riots have been going on now for over seven months and yet there has not been a single case of a death caused by Hong Kong’s security forces. There has been propaganda and lies about completely unsubstantiated mysterious deaths and there have been accidental deaths and suicides but, despite firing thousands of rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets, sponge grenades and hand-to-hand combat with rioters also armed with petrol bombs, steel bars and pipes, hammers, and even bow and arrows (and a few guns and explosive devices) – NOT ONE death caused by the police. Sadly, it may only be a matter of time before that changes. I’m sure there have been incidents of excessive police force in the heat of the moment combined with the few live fire incidents (all non fatal) reported but the number of deaths caused by the police is still ZERO as of the new year in 2020 which is lower than the deaths caused by protesters hitting and throwing bricks and other things at civilians. So when I keep seeing media reports of excessive Hong Kong police brutality; sorry but I call bullshit on that as well. Let’s just look at what happened in the Los Angeles riots in 1992 that occured over only six days (you know, self-proclaimed homeland of freedom and democracy). “By the end of the riot 53 people had died, including 35 from gunfire (including eight shot by law enforcement officers and two by National Guardsmen), six due to arson, two from attackers armed with sticks or boards, two from stabbings, six in car accidents (including two hit-and-runs), and one from strangling.”
As much as I hate to agree with him, Nury Vittachi seems to have some of the most reasoned and pithy meme about Hong Kong today. As he wishes, I respectfully steal his work:
