The Propagandistic Joke That Is Xinhua

There have been a number of criticisms of the Chinese daily, Xinhua. For starters it is the Communist Party's organ of "news" dispersal throughout the People's Republic of China. One can always find Xinhua dispersing the party message. Under normal circumstances one could really just ignore or even cynically laugh off the old Communist party organs, however, China's news agency is read quite a bit by up to 330,000 people a month. I even had one professor (oddly enough one on the history of terrorism) who recommended we use Xinhua because of their extensive world coverage.

I noticed today that Xinhua really upped themselves when covering the latest shooting in Zahle. Just to recap on the situation, the Kataeb party (also referred to as the Phalangests in the Western press), a party aligned with the pro-government March 14th coalition and has a primarily Christian (Maronite, Greek Catholic and some Greek Orthodox) membership just opened a new office in the Bekka Valley town of Zahle. At the opening party officials were there including former president Amine Gemayel's son Samy Gemayel. After Samy Gemayel left the opening events two gunmen opened fire, killing 2 and wounding another 3. Through the grapevine I heard the shooters were both Ba'athists (the Ba'ath Party is the totalitarian party that runs Syria, and used to run Iraq) and supporters of Elias Skaff (a pro-Syrian MP).

Now, as for my earlier criticism, you would figure that even though Xinhua has a staff of 10,000 (note: Reuters has only about 1300) that they could possibly even get the hard facts correct, unfortunately they couldn't. Here is the article:

Phalange party official vows to execute killers in E Lebanon
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/21/content_8022094.htm

BEIRUT, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Phalange party official Elie Marouni on Monday vowed to turn over the killers of two Phalange party members, and execute them immediately without trail, local Future TV reported.

Eli Marouni, head of Phalange party office in Zahle, eastern Lebanon, is also the brother of one of two Phalange party members who were gunned down Sunday afternoon.

Salim Assi and Nasri Marouni were killed shortly after Salim Gemayel, son of former President Amin Gemayel, left the headquarters of the Christian party in Zahle, which is part of theruling coalition, a party statement was quoted as saying.

Security forces launched a massive operation looking for the killers. The city of Zahle was sealed by security forces at the request of Bishops in the city, while the Lebanese army set up checkpoints and carried out house search in the area.

Local media Monday said security forces raided several houses overnight in search of two suspects Joseph Zouki and his brother Toumi who were seen by witnesses shooting at the crowd.

Gemayel's oldest son, Pierre, who was a government minister and a member of parliament, was killed in a car bomb explosion on Nov.21, 2006.

Now, let's look at the facts for starters Amine Gemayel's son is named SAMY, not "Salim" (please see bold statement above). Pierre Gemayel, Samy's older brother was killed not via car bomb but in a shooting. For further note, when analyzing the actual article one can plainly see the poorly hidden bias. The title of the article is telling: "Phalange party official vows to execute killers", yes, let's make it (meaning Kataeb party members, and in turn the pro-Western March 14th bloc) look extra-judicial! Needless to say the People's Republic of China carries out the largest numbers of executions globally, but I would assume no one at Xinhua covers that. The story says little about the suspected killers, obviously it is only a "look" at someone, who is now hurt and angry to lose a family/fellow party member. Little is said about how pro-Syrian groups have carried out numerous assassinations (including that of Pierre Amine Gemayel), or about the internal dynamics of Zahle (a town occupied post 1984 by Syria, and which has been used as a breeding ground for Syria to get Christians to defect from their usual anti-Syrian positions).

Xinhua, couldn't get the facts straight, and then uses minor/misunderstood facts to distort the news...Goebbels...Oh wait, he was a Nazi, Stalin couldn't have done it better himself! That's Socialist Realism for you!