Archive for 2020
April 7, 2020
EXPLAINING THE MANCHURIAN MEDIA:
Or to put it another way: China’s Long Tentacles Extend Deep Into American Media.
The companies that own the major news networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, all do significant business in China. On the print side, top U.S. newspapers like the Washington Post and New York Times have been criticized for running paid China Daily inserts. What they were paid for these inserts is still unknown.
By contrast, conservative news companies are much less involved in China. Conservative radio giant Salem, whose attempt to buy Tribune several years ago provoked an enormous freakout from media reporters over consolidation, is all-American. And Fox, after several troubled attempts to break into the Chinese market—including sending a News Corp team to help build People’s Daily a website—has mostly given up, after selling its Asia-Pacific operations to Disney over the last two years.
Disney owns ABC and has a park in Shanghai. It also owns ESPN, which was criticized for its coverage of China’s retaliation against the NBA earlier this year over one team owner’s support of the Hong Kong protests. But other than ABC, Disney is relatively uninvolved in news.
Comcast, on the other hand, has a much larger footprint in the U.S. media landscape, between NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC. The company’s role in fostering cultural exchange is truly historic: they’ve brought to millions of American homes a customer service experience akin to a utility provider in a communist country, and have invested billions to bring “Minion Land” and a Harry Potter village to Beijing, with the help of a state-owned investment vehicle.
What might the Chinese government do if it were displeased with something that ran on MSNBC? Perhaps they’d have a tense conversation with their partners at 30 Rockefeller Plaza about the forthcoming slate of movie releases in China. Or it might be worse, given their decision to cut off all NBA games to retaliate against one team owner.
But evidently China is pleased with their partnership so far, and no NBC journalists had their residency permits pulled earlier this month. A March 10 post on the New York consulate’s website touted a recent meeting with Comcast execs:
Comcast Corporation is not only the participator of the increasingly close cultural exchanges, but also the contributor and beneficiary of deeper economic exchanges between China and the US. The NBC and the Universal Studios Theme Park in Beijing are witnesses of the in-depth development of Sino-US economic and trade relations and increasingly close cultural exchanges.
Consul General Huang Ping made a point of discussing China’s response to the coronavirus, as well as news coverage in the U.S.: “China’s prevention and control practices have earned valuable time and experience for other countries. …We hope that the NBC and other U.S. media will objectively and fairly report China’s efforts to control the epidemic.”
Comcast’s masters in Beijing must be quite pleased with the coverage they’re receiving from NBC:
As Jim Geraghty wrote in October, when the CCP-NBA connection exposed for millions of Americans to see: We’re Not Exporting Our Values to China — We’re Importing Theirs.
MEGAN FOX ON THE RADIO: This is a little late getting to me, but Megan Fox is on the radio right now, on the Mark Griffith Show.
The Mark Griffith Show airs weekdays at 1 p.m. in the Denver Market on 560 KLZ on the AM dial. Online at www.klzradio.com. Folks can call the show at 303-477-5600.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Time to put China on lockdown for its dishonesty amid coronavirus crisis. “China’s response was inept, dishonest and utterly inconsiderate of the world. We need to teach the Chinese government a lesson.”
I DUNNO, JUDGING FROM THE PRESS COVERAGE IT KINDA IS: Whether Hydroxycholoroquine Works Is Not About Trump.
COLD WAR II: GOP sounds alarm after ‘quasi-official’ Chinese outlet gains access to coronavirus press briefing, promotes Beijing.
“Only last week, there were multiple flights coming from China full of medical supplies,” the reporter from Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV began during Monday’s briefing. “Companies like Huawei and Alibaba have been donating to the United States, like 1.5 million N95 masks and also a lot of medical gloves, and much more medical supplies.”
“Sounds like a statement more than a question,” Trump interjected.
The reporter then asked if Trump was willing to work “directly” with China; Trump responded that China should honor its trade deals with the United States.
“Are you cooperating with China?” she pressed. “Who are you working for, China?” Trump responded. “Who are you with?”
The reporter smiled. “Um, no, I’m working for — Hong Kong Phoenix TV.”
“Who owns that? China?” Trump asked.
“It’s based in Hong Kong. … It’s a privately owned company.”
But it turns out that Phoenix TV, which has aggressively sought to expand in the United States, has closer ties to the Chinese government than the reporter let on.
While we were enjoying our cheap consumer goods, Beijing was busy figuring out all-new attack vectors for Cold War II.
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Five Civil Rights Americans Lost to the COVID-19 Panic.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Army Tanks on Trains Aren’t a Sign of Impending Martial Law.
LABOUR’S LONG ROAD BACK FROM CORBYNISM:
What remains of Labour is not liberated from the taint of Corbynism. [Labour’s new leader, Keir Starmer], an avowed socialist, was a member of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, and his opposition government is composed of the same odious lawmakers who once flanked Corbyn. As the Atlantic’s Tom McTague convincingly argued, Corbyn has left an indelible ideological stamp on the party he led for nearly half a decade. But it was unrealistic to expect an institution that was once so invested in the success of its leadership to tear out his legacy root and branch overnight. It will take time before the party or its most loyal members are willing to acknowledge and atone for the scale of their errors. But Starmer chose to mark his ascension with an explicit acknowledgment of the conditions that rendered the party toxic. Even if it’s only the first step, it’s in the right direction.
Faster, please.
SALENA ZITO: Truck drivers make it possible for everyone else to work from home.
Truckers have become a new wave of front line responders in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic — starting with Eby, who gets the piglet to the farm to be fattened, and the next driver who gets the fattened pig to the butcher, and the next one who gets the refrigerated meat to the store.
Before the realities of this pandemic, trucks were often ignored. Their impact on our daily lives was considered an annoyance, as they chugged slowly up the winding hills of our back roads on the way to that grocery store, hospital, department store, or Amazon distribution center.
Never mind that they are filled with those essential things we have to have or nonessential things we thought we had to have. Too often, people mindlessly assume what they buy at Target or Walmart or Whole Foods comes from the back room, not from a farm upstate, or a factory four states away.
“I’m glad that our industry is finally getting a little bit of a positive spin,” said Richards, “So many times, you run up and down the highways and all you see is plaintiff attorneys advertising, wanting to sue truckers.”
Read the whole thing.
SO LOOKING AT THIS MAP OF INFECTION DENSITY in the NYC metro area, I note that Manhattan looks considerably better than the surrounding area. I’m wondering if there’s a correlation between long subway or bus rides and higher rates of infection.