By Geoff Dyer, China bureau chief
One of the occupational hazards of being a reporter in Beijing is being on the receiving end of a lecture about how the western media treats China unfairly. It can come from foreign ministry officials, company executives or taxi-drivers. I once got a warning from a corn farmer whose fields had just been ravaged by a chemicals spill not to write an article making China look bad. The charge is usually the same – that foreign journalists are so obsessed about human rights abuses and internet censorship that we miss the positive things happening in Chinese economy and society.
If I am feeling a bit defensive, I will question whether there really is a coherent group called “the western media” or argue that the job of a journalist involves calling attention to problems, not handing out gold stars.
Or sometimes I will say that it does not ring true, that for every human rights story there are two more about how China and its economy have changed. Well, now there is some evidence, in the form of a survey from an organization called The Global Language Monitor which researches trends in printed and electronic media.
The conclusion is that the biggest story of the decade in the media has been the rise of China. Indeed, it is the biggest story by far, outstretching the Iraq war in second place by 400 per cent. September 11, the financial crisis, or the death of Michael Jackson received much less coverage than China.
Of course, stories about China’s rise are not always positive. Some of those articles, I suspect, are about environmental damage or dodgy consumer goods. But it does suggest that the media has given broad coverage to the real changes that have taken place in China. As Paul Payack of Global Language Monitor told Reuters: “The rise of China to new economic heights has changed and continues to challenge the current international order.”
I tried to find out more on Global Language Monitor’s website about what sort of China articles were included yet after getting onto the homepage, some of the other pages seemed to be blocked in Beijing. But to point that out would be a bit unfair.
Related reading:
Where’s the Chinese Toyota? Foreign Policy
The Frugal Republic The New Yorker
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