Opinion | Reuters and the art of 'subtle bias'
By Tom Fowdy
Yesterday, the British news outlet Thompson Reuters posted a story titled: "China will launch Shenzhou-16 mission to the Chinese space station on May 30". Now while nothing was controversial itself about the text of that particular article, merely announcing China was pursuing a space mission, social media was taken back by its choice of photograph for that particular story. Did Reuters use the photo of a rocket? Or a space station? To depict the news? No, instead they opted for a photo of a Chinese flag next to a security camera, an image of course which depicts an extremely biased rendering of the country.
Few believe that the choice of image was an accident. It isn't just Reuters after all which does this kind of thing, it is the mainstream media at large. Images can speak so much louder than words, especially in conveying messages and impressions, which of course has been an underlying purpose of art for thousands of years. Therefore, it is unsurprising that the mainstream media, which launders the agenda and the talking points of the United States at large, deliberately emphasizes negative imagery in its stories about China.
The examples of such are many. This includes a frequent use of smoggy scenes in Beijing (as well as the BBC's infamous grey filter), depictions of soldiers, sometimes one putting their hand towards the camera, the infamous focus on the security camera as mentioned above, barbed wire fences, and if not those things, the use of cartoons and artworks to draw China in threatening ways, such as depicting a dragon about to devour the world, and so on. The list goes on and on, and they all converge to create the depiction of a dystopian, Orwellian, and threatening country.
Reuters on its own, however, is notorious for the application of such "subtle" bias in its treatment of China. There is plenty of reason to be suspicious about Reuters. Although it frames itself as a "news of record" service whose coverage is minimalist, as opposed to overtly opinionated, it nonetheless has a longstanding history of illicitly pushing US-led narratives. During the first Cold War, it was revealed through declassified documents that Reuters served an agenda on behalf of MI6 and CIA, targeting certain countries of interest with an "Anti-Soviet propaganda" unit.
Although this is framed as a "past" phenomenon, there is no reason to assume such government direction over it would have changed, especially in the geopolitical environment we have now. Such agenda pushing is overtly visible in how Reuters presents its "coverage" pertaining to China. While the application of biased imagery, as discussed above, is one example. Another is how Reuters gives weight in its coverage to developments and news which lean towards promoting critical narratives of China or negative impressions.
Secondly, the use of language and terminology in Reuters reports also carries a strategy of subtle bias. For example, Reuters assumes the truthfulness of Western narratives in its news, such as by using words such as "aggressive" or "assertive" to describe China in benign ways, or to use US government-created terminologies such as "economic coercion" to present its behavior in certain ways out of context, thus leading to the third factor, which is "bias by omission". Bias by omission involves deliberately refusing to include wider context or points to a story that strives to fundamentally mislead the reader towards a given point of view.
Therefore, when all these factors are taken into consideration, it is hardly convincing to claim that Reuters is neutral or impartial in its coverage of Beijing, utilizing a similar strategy to the BBC, albeit one which is slightly less explicitly ideological and elitist. Ironically, however, the deliberate use of a security camera image to depict China in a story about a space station isn't in fact subtle at all, but it is as explicit as it gets for some, which will be an eye opener for many people in understanding how this news outlet is just one of many mainstream media outlets pretending to be impartial, but in fact, co-opted by state influence in pursuing US political goals.
The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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