Chinese Don't Take Kindly to Orwellian Smears

During the first day after the Virginia Tech shootings many Chinese were under the impression that the gunman was Chinese.  Apparently Michael Sneed of the Chicago Sun-Times reported prematurely that the shooter was a Chinese national.  This spread quickly across China and among the Chinese here in the U.S.  

The Chinese were under a state of shock and embarrassment, deep shame and loss of face.

More below:

The Chinese appear to be upset because they still are under the assumption that whatever the U.S. media reports is trustworthy, and if it reports it, it must be true. They actually hold our country and our institutions up to near-hero worship, believe it or not. This is what you hear when you talk to everyday people. The U.S. is so great. The debacle in 2000?  Something like that could never happen in the great U.S.  They just don't believe it.  But I digress.

From Beijing Newspeak's, "Ill-informed Chicago columnist scares the hell out of China:"

http://www.beijingnewspeak.com/...

If Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed finds herself on an extended holiday, she would be advised to strike China off her list of refuge spots.

Sneed wrote in the Chicago newspaper on Tuesday that the Virginia Tech gunman was Chinese. On Tuesday evening, Virginia State Police identified the killer as South Korean. During the twelve hours between Sneed’s column hitting the shelves and the official statement, China was quivering. A host of international websites carried the story "Chinese student suspected of Virginia massacre". The main international news agencies wisely chose to wait for the official statement much to the relief of Xinhua. Alarm bells were ringing on the eighth floor, which is home to the international news department, and there was a flurry of activity to work out how to report the nationality of the gunman.

In the warm spirit of totalitarianism, the Chinese government wasted no time trying to block the horrifying news from coming into China, according to James Fallows from:

http://jamesfallows.com/...

During the long night after the shooting U.S. time, which was daytime Tuesday in China, that report was picked up — surprise! — by Fox news and a few smaller U.S. outlets, and, via web news sites, it quickly made its way to China.

What the Chinese media did next was bad in a predictable way. Many web links to outside news of the shooting were blocked to limit subsequent details from reaching China. As reported in this blog from Beijing, parts of CCTV and the other official news outlets downplayed all announcements about the shooting until they could be sure what the "correct" Chinese angle would turn out to be. Meanwhile some other Chinese press web sites reported the news — and the suspicion, emanating from America, that the killer was Chinese.

Fallows is also reporting that the original story from the Sun Times disappeared down the "memory hole" and had been replaced by a newer correct story.  Then he updated his post linking to the original report having found the original version. Perhaps one might say that it was just updated the way stories often are in the high-speed world of online columns.  Maybe the whole thing is Orwellian by its very nature. Intent is hard to judge and is quite impossible to prove.

KO also mentioned the day after the shootings right-wing columnist Debby Schlussel also misidentified the shooter in his "Worst Person" segment.  From the show's transcript:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

OLBERMANN: First, time for COUNTDOWN‘s latest list of nominees for Worst Person in the World.  

And obviously, in the light of the events at Virginia Tech, a good time for one of the periodic reminders that this is satirical social commentary, not some sort of literal designation.  Although, when you hear these, all about Virginia Tech, you may have your doubts.  

The bronze to right-wing columnist Debby Schlussel.  In between her references to, quote, Hoprah Winfrey, unquote, she first wrote yesterday that authorities did not immediately identified the shooter at Virginia Tech, so he might have been a, quote, Paki, and part of a coordinated terrorist attack by Muslims.  She later updated this to conclude that he was a Chinese national, then a South Korean national.  Quote, yet another reason to stop letting in so many foreign students.  The shooter, of course, had been a resident alien who had been here since he was eight and a half years old.  

As I talk to people and read through some commentary on sina.net, panic, embarrassment and shame is turning to anger, one commenter demanding that the Chicago Sun-Times apologize to the Chinese people.