by Chang Shi

June 6, 2012 (TSR) – The “Houla Massacre” in Syria,which claimed more than 100 lives, including at least 32 children, shocked the world. At present, the tragic event has not been ascertained but many Western media have blamed the Syrian government. Many Western countries immediately announced to expel the Syrian ambassadors.?

The truth behind the attack on Houla town needs time to be further investigated. However, viewing from the previous events in recent years, truth was often not what the Western media had reported. Nor have any interest in doing so.

For example, before the Iraq war, the Western media had hyped up that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but the facts proved that it was fictitious. Then, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people died in the war. Before the financial crisis, the U.S. media still advocated that the U.S. system is superior, the U.S. economy is powerful and the U.S. credit is Triple A. However, when the crisis came, the world economy suffered a lot.

The riots that happened in Lhasa and Urumqi in China on March 14 and on July 5 respectively are in fact violent crimes but the Western media reported them as “cruel suppression by Chinese government”.?These facts have proved that the usual trick of the Western media is to distort and selectively take advantage of the facts to serve their subjective purpose.??

Take the Libya issue as an example, the reports of Western media never mentioned how many innocent people were killed and wounded during the NATO air strikes. Nor did they report that Gaddafi was murdered and that international laws were violated. The Western media are actually the spokesperson of the Western hegemonic interests and will do anything extreme in order to safeguard the interests of Western capital in the world. The hypocritical behaviors of Western media are conspicuous in recent international affairs. The truth has become unclear under their concealing.

Many people believe the lies made up by the Western media but rarely pursue the truth. A bad social tendency is that someone believes in something forever and some others never believe in it. It is increasingly difficult to reach an agreement on the truth. The negative social phenomenon is the result of the malicious instillation of some media. These media lack basic value judgment and standard of right and wrong and constantly send wrong messages to the public. Some tabloids, for example, like to flaunt the banner of “pursuing truth” to find someone to speak for them and serve them. Moreover, some media even tie their interests to the Western countries and make propaganda in the daily reports. In this regard, our society should not keep silence any more but should form a corrective mechanism. ?

The current China is a diversified society, and when an incident occurs, people want to know the truth as soon as possible. But the reality is that the course of approaching the truth is becoming harder in this increasingly noisy field of opinions. Especially, since the Internet has become very developed, people tend to believe every piece of news, though many of them are false news or baseless guesses.

Therefore, the news media’s social value and responsibility are even more important in the age of the Internet. The news media ought to shoulder the social responsibility of showing the truth to the public but should not deliberately create meaningless sensations or even lie to attract attentions. Regarding the principle of reporting the truth, Western media are not honest at all. Chinese media should have their correct adjustments and standpoints. ?

A real and diversified world should have more than one voice. Therefore, Chinese media (and independents) should play a more important role on the international stage and make detailed inquiries about the “truth” reported by Western media. Only in this way will the truth not be manipulated and controlled by a few people.

This article was translated by People’s Daily Online and edited by The Santos Republic. It was first published in Beijing Daily.

__________________

AUTHOR: Chang Shi

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here