The Return of Bird Flu

Gee Ramsey, you are based in China and you write about China. Scott MacLeod is based in Egypt and he never writes about Egypt. Doesn't Time have some sort of policy concerning this matter? Also: don't you think Time should have an Africa blog. I think Zimbabwe has 3,000 known dead and another 50,000 infected with cholera.

China is a big country and has a lot to report. We cannot compare China with Zimbabwe or Egypt. All reporters should pay attention to China, no matter where they are located. But they should all report only good news about China, or, at least, report all news about China with a positive light on China, and only positive light. Just like CCTV.

Thought-provoking article, although I feel like Western media has been a bit harsh toward Beijing's efforts to stem bird flu. I'd be interested to read more on how culling is determined and the financial cost to farmers, vendors, and the government during this current economic crisis- haven't seen any reports on this. I was retained in 2007 to write on H5N1 for crisis management and have since enjoyed noting the differences between journalistic/business perspectives (www.aimeebarnes.com/blog for a more in-depth response). Look forward to reading more from you on this subject.

"I'd be interested to read more on how culling is determined and the financial cost to farmers, vendors, and the government during this current economic crisis-" You mean you want to read some state secrets ?

well, i don't know how culling is done in china, but i do know how it is done in israel. the israeli government, uderstanding the capitalist mentality, offers the farmers more money to have the birds culled than they could get selling them in the market. Naturally, the farmers are more than happy to have their birds culled and their is a nasty rumour that they are flying in healthy birds from other countries to be culled as well (just kidding). basically, if a few birds are found to be infected they kill every bird in the area and by paying the farmers a fair price this discourages the farmers from trying to hide birds.

to John Smith, I do not agree. Every body has good points and bad points (Even Brad Pitt and Angolina Jolina). Therefore, if all the news about China was only good news then, after a while, nobody would believe it any more.I believe you have nothing to worry about with the occassional bad story. Look at Israel, 90% of the stories about Israel are bad, but I can assure you we are doing very, very well here. The people are happy, even the Arabs, and we are building new businesses, planting trees in the desert and developing new medicines (and, as Time magazine reported, an Israeli is on the cover of Sports Illustrated). Basically, people like China. A few bad stories here and there is not going to change that, so: don't worry, be happy.

"I believe you have nothing to worry about with the occassional bad story." I have nothing to worring about any news. I just don't want people to hurt the feeling of 1.3 billion Chinese. Israelis are different. They can handle good news and bad. So can most people. But Chinese have a special status that no one should report anything bad about them, or their feeling gets hurt.

i grew up with many chinese friends in new york and we have many ethnic chinese in israel from vietnam and as workers in both construction and in domestic work. I believe the chinese are a strong people and they will adapt to the new "media situation" brought about china's new emerging economy and status as a super power.

A vocal path.

You live
near a vocal
path, and always
a young bird
returns in your
head like a
beautiful song
in the light
of a white dream...

Francesco Sinibaldi

http://neighbors.denverpost.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=123004795&p=659809#p659809

"I believe the chinese are a strong people and they will adapt to the new "media situation" brought about china's new emerging economy and status as a super power."

Your Chinese friends in New York and Israel probably don't represent the 1.3 billion the Chinese government represents. I rather trust their judgment on how easily and frequently Chinese feelings are hurt. It is probably on a daily basis. Dalai Lama just received a prize from Europe and Chinese feelings are hurt. Lai receive a work permit in Canada, and Chinese feelings are hurt. The US government issue a recall for some products in the US and Chinese feelings are hurt.

Talking about good news and bad. There is great news just reported from Guangzhou. There was a shortage of labor in Southern China in the last two years. This year, the problem is much reduced. There are 100 thousand more migrant worker in Guangzhou this year than last. Companies are reporting easing of tight labor market.

There is a further piece of good news. The rural workers in China usually have less education than those in urban areas. This year, the education level of the rural farm workers has risen substantially. 19% of workers seeking work in rural areas have college education. The rural workers are now much better educated and can, therefore, be more productive, and producing much better quality of farm products.

With such great improvement in the job market in China, in contrast to the worsening unemployment problem in US, China economy will overtake US in no time flat.

to johnsmith: recently my daughter was in the hopital (everything turned out well) and in the next bed was an Arab baby. When family members came to visit him they would say: "oh, what an ugly baby" and other such comments. I believe that once upon a time in China the same tradition was prevalent: complimenting babies brought upon them "the jealousy of the spirits". Therefore, in conclusion, I think you should use the criticisms of the media, if they are not over done, as a positive force to keep bad influences away from China. If everyone told a small child all the time "oh, you are wonderful", "oh you are so smart", "oh, you are so attractive" then the child would grow up to be conceited and would believe that his opinions are always right. Criticism, can be a valuable source of new ideas and can prevent one from making mistakes. In the last campaign Israel killed, approximately, 700 Hama fighters and 700 civilians who got caught in the middle of the conflict. Israel tries hard to prevent civilian casualties, not so much because we love Arabs, but because we know the media is watching everything we do. I think that Time's Cairo correspondent: Scott MacLeod and their Jerusalem correspondent: Tim McGirk are biased and anti Israel, none the less, if it wasn't for people like them the civilian death toll in Gaza would have been much higher since Israel would have taken less precautions.

"I believe that once upon a time in China the same tradition was prevalent: "

The "once upon a time" is now, today. Chinese children are even given nicknames as animals "Niu", "Giu", "Mao", sometimes girls were given boys names, just to avoid evil spirits. I am so glad that you endorse such practice, even in news reporting.

There is a difference between news reporting and news commentary. News reporting should be all facts, or, as factual as the reporter can dig out. Commentary is the opinion of the reporter, and should be biased, towards the reporters personal feeling about the issue. Mixing the two up, and you are up the creek.

And not allowing news to be reported is just dumb, and dead wrong, except in China. Chinese are different. They have different kind of human rights where access to information is not as important as keeping the CCP in power. CCP is more important than Chinese, I guess. Of course, keeping CCP in power is the only way to keep China strong and intact. Chinese just don't know how to do that otherwise. Han and Tang dynasty was invaded by foreigners and got torn up because CCP wasn't in charge. Japan lost WWII because Japan did not have CCP helping them. And US got into such financial and economical mess because US was not ruled by CCP.

700 fighter and 700 civilian mortality is a great performance, when the fighters are imbedded with the civilians. I just don't see how anyone can avoid hitting people right next to the guy shooting at you, and some how artillery shells can tell the difference between a fighter and a civilian right next to him, and hurting only the fighter. I just wonder how many Israelis were hurt because the Israeli soldiers take this special precaution.

to john smith: well if you liked those figures then you will be happy to note that the israeli army today (see Jerusalem Post.com) published the results of the investigation into the fighting. It claims that of the 1,338 dead , they have positively identified 1,200 of them and of these only 350 were civilians. The IDF claims that Hamas "grossly distorted" the war casualties and for example in the UN school incident only 12 people were killed and 9 of them were fighters for Hamas (Hamas and the UN originally reported 40 dead civilians).

You are a great believer in the CCP. Israel has a strong socialist backgound and the kibbutz movement consists of a network of "mini communes", but today they are not as socialistic as they once were. It is still my opinion that Time Magazine, criticisms and all, has a role to play in China. Let's leave it at that, Good luck to you.....