Let’s play “Actually Read Your Sources.” We’ll start with the BBC one.
I was one of the foreign journalists who witnessed the events that night.
Our author starts off by saying he was not just on the ground in Beijing, but “witnessed the events.”
Towards midday on 4 June, amid reports of widespread casualties, I wrote in another draft that “many of the deaths occurred at Tiananmen Square, not only from gunshots, but also from being crushed by tanks, which ploughed relentlessly through any obstacle in their way.”
Our reporter does not claim to have witnessed any of this, despite earlier saying he “witnessed the events.” Instead, his in-the-moment story is that there are “reports” of salacious details like tanks running people over. Reports from whom? It’s understandable not to name names if these were ordinary people, but were they students, residents, police…? Did they claim to have personally witnessed the events, or are they too telling a story based on “reports”? And if anything was done to verify these reports (again, our author was there while this was happening, his whole job is ostensibly to do this type of groundwork), it didn’t make the article.
On the morning of 4 June, reporters in the Beijing Hotel close to the square saw troops open fire indiscriminately at unarmed citizens on Chang’an Boulevard who were too far away from the soldiers to pose any real threat.
Here it is inexcusable not to name which reporters claim to have witnessed this key event. They presumably put there name on the same story so there’s no one to protect, especially in 2009 when this article was written. It’s also poor professional ethics to cite someone’s scoop and give them (and whatever outlet they report to) zero credit. At best this is a rumor, at worst it’s obvious bullshit, fatally undermined by no credible journalist would write a “20 year retrospective/let’s get the truth right” article and omit such a crucial detail.
Thirty or 40 bodies lay, apparently lifeless, on the road afterwards.
Of course there are no pictures of any of this, despite unnamed “reporters” claiming to have witnessed it. This is again inexcusable – this is a career-making story for a journalist, their whole job is to record important events, and not only do we not have a name of any journalist who says they actually saw 40 dead bodies on the ground, we don’t even have a photo.
The government said 200 citizens died (from stray bullets and shootings by thugs), in addition to dozens of troops… Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, who did some admirable detective work in Beijing hospitals in the weeks after the massacre, said in a report published on 21 June 1989 that “it seems plausible that about a dozen soldiers and policemen were killed, along with 400 to 800 civilians”.
Ahh, so it is possible to name a reporter who actually saw something! We finally have a named person who apparently witnessed something important (still nothing on the author’s own observations, despite his initial claim that he “witnessed the events”), and he even gives some basic detail on how he verified his claims (visiting hospitals, albeit weeks later). And… his claims are only slightly different from the government’s story.
The standard line now used by foreign journalists is that “hundreds, possibly thousands” died.
The Chinese government was quick to exploit the weaknesses in our reporting.
The audacity of the Chinese government to take issue with hostile press reporting things their own reporters dispute!
But it is not uncommon to find Chinese who believe the Communist Party’s fiction that there was a riot in Beijing on 3 June that warranted intervention.
Let’s play “Actually Read Your Sources.” We’ll start with the BBC one.
Our author starts off by saying he was not just on the ground in Beijing, but “witnessed the events.”
Our reporter does not claim to have witnessed any of this, despite earlier saying he “witnessed the events.” Instead, his in-the-moment story is that there are “reports” of salacious details like tanks running people over. Reports from whom? It’s understandable not to name names if these were ordinary people, but were they students, residents, police…? Did they claim to have personally witnessed the events, or are they too telling a story based on “reports”? And if anything was done to verify these reports (again, our author was there while this was happening, his whole job is ostensibly to do this type of groundwork), it didn’t make the article.
Here it is inexcusable not to name which reporters claim to have witnessed this key event. They presumably put there name on the same story so there’s no one to protect, especially in 2009 when this article was written. It’s also poor professional ethics to cite someone’s scoop and give them (and whatever outlet they report to) zero credit. At best this is a rumor, at worst it’s obvious bullshit, fatally undermined by no credible journalist would write a “20 year retrospective/let’s get the truth right” article and omit such a crucial detail.
Of course there are no pictures of any of this, despite unnamed “reporters” claiming to have witnessed it. This is again inexcusable – this is a career-making story for a journalist, their whole job is to record important events, and not only do we not have a name of any journalist who says they actually saw 40 dead bodies on the ground, we don’t even have a photo.
Ahh, so it is possible to name a reporter who actually saw something! We finally have a named person who apparently witnessed something important (still nothing on the author’s own observations, despite his initial claim that he “witnessed the events”), and he even gives some basic detail on how he verified his claims (visiting hospitals, albeit weeks later). And… his claims are only slightly different from the government’s story.
The audacity of the Chinese government to take issue with hostile press reporting things their own reporters dispute!
You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me