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  • bjbj,(,( On this episode of China Uncensored, what you don t know about the New York Times

  • Is Killing People Logo Hi, welcome to China Uncensored, I m Chris Chappell. You know,

  • the New York Times is one of the few foreign language news websites that s actually unblocked

  • in China. Why is that? If you saw one of my earlier episodes, you know the New York Times

  • is being paid to publish Chinese propaganda. It s called China Watch. They aren t the only

  • ones either; the Washington Post has a whole site dedicated to it, but with a very obvious

  • warning that it isn t their own reporting. And you know, the kind of stories you get

  • in these things are top notch. Like this one about China s new leader Xi Jinping being

  • a caring listener. And he has dreamy eyes. But hey, I get it. In America we like presidents

  • we can share a beer with. And look at how well that turned out for us. But the New York

  • Times is taking it to a whole new level. You know the Times has been criticized for failing

  • to report on the Holocaust. There s a book about it called Buried by the Times. During

  • World War 2, in 24,000 front-page stories, only 26 were about the Holocaust and in only

  • six were Jews mentioned as the primary victims. Well, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me

  • twice; better buy the New York Post. Now it s the Chinese regime s genocide of Falun Gong

  • practitioners in China that the Times is not only ignoring, but actually helping. Since

  • 1999, Falun Gong adherents have been the victims of a systematic campaign of torture and terror,

  • including beatings, electric baton shocks, injections with psychotropic drugs, forced-feeding,

  • rape and other forms of sexual abuse. Report after report has come in about this from sources

  • like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the UN, and even the US government. In 2006,

  • an independent investigation even found massive evidence that China at the state-level has

  • been forcefully harvesting the organs of still-living Falun Gong practitioners for sale. A recent

  • US Congressional hearing lead to a dear colleague letter signed by 106 US Senators demanding

  • the US State Department release what it knows about it. But don t bother looking for the

  • congressional hearing or dear colleague letter in the New York Times. They didn t cover it.

  • In fact, since 2001, there s been a sharp decline in any reporting about Falun Gong.

  • In ten years after the persecution began in 1999, only 164 articles have been written

  • about Falun Gong, most were in the first two years. Not only did the number shrink, the

  • tone of the articles they did publish dramatically changed after 2001. Considering Falun Gong

  • is a persecuted group inside China, you d think the stories would, I don t know, be

  • about China. But since 2003, not a single meaningful article about Falun Gong inside

  • China was published. And it also seems to me that if you were to report on a group suffering

  • genocide at the hands of the Chinese Communist regime, you wouldn t use the Chinese Communist

  • regime as your main source of information. But that s exactly what the New York Times

  • has been doing. So before 2001, Falun Gong was described as a peaceful spiritual practice

  • with roots in traditional Chinese culture, that were victims of a quote, propaganda blitz,

  • which recalls Maoist campaigns of the 1950s and 60s. (Show in Video Edit-Mark Landler

  • s account from July 22, 1999 that describes the practice as a fusion of the ancient Chinese

  • practice of qigong the channeling of vital energies through breathing exercises with

  • elements of Buddhism and Taoism) But after 2001, suddenly Falun Gong practitioners began

  • to sound like THEY were the bad guys. In a third of the articles the New York Times published

  • about Falun Gong, they described the practice as a sect, or just used the term the Chinese

  • regime uses, evil cult. And it really stopped sounding like they were even being persecuted.

  • In 2005, Jim Yardley of the Times wrote, Falun Gong is waging an aggressive campaign to publicize

  • its allegations of mistreatment, which the Chinese government has denied. It is impossible

  • to prove or disprove all of its specific allegations. The next year, evidence for the forced organ

  • harvesting of still living Falun Gong practitioners became public. I guess though the Times feels

  • that the burden of proof is on the victims. That s how a sane world works, right? But

  • then they also started contradicting their own reporting. In 1999, when the persecution

  • began, the Times cited figures put out by China that there were 70 million people practicing

  • Falun Gong in China. But then in 2001, Craig Smith wrote that the number was made up by

  • Falun Gong practitioners, and that quote, Closer scrutiny suggests the movement in China

  • never numbered more than several million. Which is funny because when he was working

  • for the Wall Street Journal, he wrote, some government officials estimate that the number

  • of followers has reached 60 million or more. s also written that Falun Gong practitioners

  • have, died as a result of confrontations with the police or prison guards. Not from brutal

  • torture of an all-powerful regime crushing dissidence, mind you, but just a confrontation,

  • between police and what he describes as a sect that makes up numbers. I m sure they

  • just fell down the stairs. So if the Times is your only source, you get the skewed image

  • that Falun Gong is a weird, extremist group, that on the one hand could very well not be

  • suffering persecution, but at the same time also have been crushed by the Chinese regime.

  • (image of NY Times article Falun Gong Manages Skimpy Rally; Is Sect Fading?) And it s really

  • weird that there was such a big shift AFTER 2001. I wonder what happened, you know, it

  • s not like I have access to the inner workings of the New York Times or the Chinese government

  • for that matter. Butttttttt, it does strangely seem to coincide with an exclusive interview

  • the New York Times happened to pull off with Jiang Zemin, then Chinese leader and also

  • the guy who started the persecution against Falun Gong. And then suddenly after that interview,

  • the New York Times website became unblocked in China and to this day remains one of the

  • few foreign news sites to be so. In fact, Professor Jiao Buobiao said the New York Times

  • is the only international newspaper available at Beijing University s library. And they

  • just happen to be towing the Party line about the biggest human rights violation of the

  • 21st century. Pretty random coincidence, huh? I wonder if they make people in China pay

  • to see their website because I m pretty sick of that myself. So from now on, if you re

  • looking for China news, I d suggest maybe not reading the New York Times. Once again,

  • I m Chris Chappell, thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored. hRR~ hRR~ gd|I

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bjbj,(,( On this episode of China Uncensored, what you don t know about the New York Times

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