Beijing officials have disappeared seven media members for reporting on COVID-19, but allow Jane Qiu access to government researchers for celebrity interview on hair?
Goodness, her reporting reads like the few paragraphs that come before the steamy scenes in a romance novel. Our intrepid reporter may have been smitten by the perfect hair!
Yet, our institutions of higher learning (!) publish that.
I've always held MIT in high esteem and was appalled to read Jane's article in the technology review.
I was grateful to then read your article and since wrote to MIT to complain about the bias in their article and referenced reporters without frontiers.
Thanks for your efforts in highlighting Qui's appallingly weak article about Shi and the CCP's terrible treatment of Chinese journalists. Qiu's "puff piece" is yet another embarrassing attempt to maintain a group-think narrative by so-called "science" journalists.
And thanks also for calling out Qiu for her despicable twitter posts in which she relates Alina Chan's and Matt Ridley's recent book "Viral" - which merely summarizes knowledge about the origin of Covid-19 - to having the moral equivalency of a book written by an infamous denier of the Holocaust - see: https://twitter.com/janeqiuchina/status/1462690973859860480 .
Incredibly, Qiu insists that her twitter posts did not actually make such a reprehensible comparison, but only succeeds in confirming that indeed her words plainly accused the authors of "Viral" of having committed the moral equivalence of Holocaust Denial - see: https://twitter.com/janeqiuchina/status/1493200643821121542 .
After reading and being insulted by Qiu's "puff piece" on Shi, I envisioned a cartoon with Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh, holding hands with his sweet little "Piglet" - Jane Qiu, as they merrily saunter towards the future of science journalism: where obvious bias & distortions are deemed acceptable for a well-told story that furthers a preferred narrative. Oh, but I only thought up such a cartoon to make a comparison with reality - so don't accuse me now of being a "bully", "racist" or committing the sin of an "ad hominem" attack. I'm sure Jane Qiu is really a nice person!
After reading Qui's article, I wrote an email to Technology Review (for what it's worth) suggesting they put an editor's note on it. I asked that they address its inaccuracies and its overall "tone," in so far as it reads like a state-sanctioned puff piece intended to salvage the reputations of Shi and the WIV (while also distracting attention away from the "origins" question). I certainly empathize with the desire to see and hear multiple perspectives on controversial topics, but there are some pretty obvious, undergraduate-level journalism ethics violations going on in this article that the editors should have caught.
Unsurprisingly, I saw many of the usual suspects on Twitter (K. Andersen, M. Worobey, A. Rasmussen, et al.) uncritically reposting the Qiu article. That they would do so just further demonstrates that a lot of people in their positions are fine with the puffery and inaccuracies, so long as it buys them a little more time.
Ms. Chan is using the word fascism incorrectly . There are many words to describe the CCP , but the real definition of fascism is not one of them . Fascism was coined by Mussolini to describe a government where business/industry is merged with government . Another word for fascism is corporatism . I started to hear the term "fascism" from my friends when Trump was president , so I'm sure they got this from the blue team of the corporate political party (as opposed to the red team of the same party). You can't go changing the definition of words . Fascism is one thing , then authoritarian rule , totalitarian rule , autocratic rule , demagoguery rule etc etc are something else. If you don't merge corporate power with government power (like the U.S.) it's not Fascism ,Ms. Chan
Awful behaviour by all involved in this article, for sure, and definitely a concern. The bat lady is not wrong in her opinion of Western media and democracy! And It’s a bit hard for other countries to take Americans, English, and Australians seriously when you look at Julian Assange’s treatment.
"Most importantly, all of us should be alarmed that a fascist country is locking up reporters for telling inconvenient truths, while trying to fool the world with propaganda and distracting stories about hair". I guess I didn't get the memo that the CCP has incorporated , capitalistic corporations into the government . Didn't realize that there was a melding of corporate power with the the Chinese government power for the benefit of corporations. Who would have thought ? Stop changing the meaning of terms because when you use the term fascism in some other way besides what it actually means , you look stupid. Fascism is from an Italian word , made up by Mussolini and his party . Why do you think you have a right to change the meaning of a political ideology ? I know they have more letters but why don't you call them totalitarian , authoritarian , tyrannical or something like that . I've been to China and the last thing they are is fascist or even communist . They are an authoritarian , tyrannical , totalitarian DICTATORSHIP , ruled by one party . Communist ....I don't thing so . They are more capitalistic than you know ......you just have to play by the rules of the dictator .....the CCP.
Goodness, her reporting reads like the few paragraphs that come before the steamy scenes in a romance novel. Our intrepid reporter may have been smitten by the perfect hair!
Yet, our institutions of higher learning (!) publish that.
I've always held MIT in high esteem and was appalled to read Jane's article in the technology review.
I was grateful to then read your article and since wrote to MIT to complain about the bias in their article and referenced reporters without frontiers.
Thanks for your efforts in highlighting Qui's appallingly weak article about Shi and the CCP's terrible treatment of Chinese journalists. Qiu's "puff piece" is yet another embarrassing attempt to maintain a group-think narrative by so-called "science" journalists.
And thanks also for calling out Qiu for her despicable twitter posts in which she relates Alina Chan's and Matt Ridley's recent book "Viral" - which merely summarizes knowledge about the origin of Covid-19 - to having the moral equivalency of a book written by an infamous denier of the Holocaust - see: https://twitter.com/janeqiuchina/status/1462690973859860480 .
Incredibly, Qiu insists that her twitter posts did not actually make such a reprehensible comparison, but only succeeds in confirming that indeed her words plainly accused the authors of "Viral" of having committed the moral equivalence of Holocaust Denial - see: https://twitter.com/janeqiuchina/status/1493200643821121542 .
After reading and being insulted by Qiu's "puff piece" on Shi, I envisioned a cartoon with Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh, holding hands with his sweet little "Piglet" - Jane Qiu, as they merrily saunter towards the future of science journalism: where obvious bias & distortions are deemed acceptable for a well-told story that furthers a preferred narrative. Oh, but I only thought up such a cartoon to make a comparison with reality - so don't accuse me now of being a "bully", "racist" or committing the sin of an "ad hominem" attack. I'm sure Jane Qiu is really a nice person!
After reading Qui's article, I wrote an email to Technology Review (for what it's worth) suggesting they put an editor's note on it. I asked that they address its inaccuracies and its overall "tone," in so far as it reads like a state-sanctioned puff piece intended to salvage the reputations of Shi and the WIV (while also distracting attention away from the "origins" question). I certainly empathize with the desire to see and hear multiple perspectives on controversial topics, but there are some pretty obvious, undergraduate-level journalism ethics violations going on in this article that the editors should have caught.
Unsurprisingly, I saw many of the usual suspects on Twitter (K. Andersen, M. Worobey, A. Rasmussen, et al.) uncritically reposting the Qiu article. That they would do so just further demonstrates that a lot of people in their positions are fine with the puffery and inaccuracies, so long as it buys them a little more time.
China lock up their reporters, we just censor ours.
Ms. Chan is using the word fascism incorrectly . There are many words to describe the CCP , but the real definition of fascism is not one of them . Fascism was coined by Mussolini to describe a government where business/industry is merged with government . Another word for fascism is corporatism . I started to hear the term "fascism" from my friends when Trump was president , so I'm sure they got this from the blue team of the corporate political party (as opposed to the red team of the same party). You can't go changing the definition of words . Fascism is one thing , then authoritarian rule , totalitarian rule , autocratic rule , demagoguery rule etc etc are something else. If you don't merge corporate power with government power (like the U.S.) it's not Fascism ,Ms. Chan
Awful behaviour by all involved in this article, for sure, and definitely a concern. The bat lady is not wrong in her opinion of Western media and democracy! And It’s a bit hard for other countries to take Americans, English, and Australians seriously when you look at Julian Assange’s treatment.
Hi
"Most importantly, all of us should be alarmed that a fascist country is locking up reporters for telling inconvenient truths, while trying to fool the world with propaganda and distracting stories about hair". I guess I didn't get the memo that the CCP has incorporated , capitalistic corporations into the government . Didn't realize that there was a melding of corporate power with the the Chinese government power for the benefit of corporations. Who would have thought ? Stop changing the meaning of terms because when you use the term fascism in some other way besides what it actually means , you look stupid. Fascism is from an Italian word , made up by Mussolini and his party . Why do you think you have a right to change the meaning of a political ideology ? I know they have more letters but why don't you call them totalitarian , authoritarian , tyrannical or something like that . I've been to China and the last thing they are is fascist or even communist . They are an authoritarian , tyrannical , totalitarian DICTATORSHIP , ruled by one party . Communist ....I don't thing so . They are more capitalistic than you know ......you just have to play by the rules of the dictator .....the CCP.