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China

BBC Busted for Outdated China Oppression Image

By thomascrampton ⋅ August 2, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment

The anti-CNN community busted the BBC for using a photo on July 29 showing Chinese police looking at a monitor that has been used by the BBC on multiple stories reaching back to at least August 26, 2000.

An example of stock photo usage gone wrong. (Or perhaps they couldn’t get any more policemen to pose in front of computer screens.)

Sadly, Internet censorship remain very much up to date in China, even if suspended for a few foreign journalists during the Olympics.

One comment:

We use LCD screens now, how could a photo with such an old monitor be called news? Do they think we haven’t been developing here these past eight years? They can’t even make fake news properly!

Hat Tip to John Kennedy and ZonaEuropa

Popularity: 5% [?]

China, Internet, Olympics

Discussion

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Comments for “BBC Busted for Outdated China Oppression Image”

  • This just shows how rabid the anti-cnn mob is. They'll grab onto any 'mistake' as indicative the evil of western oppressors.
  • @Cerebus, @Shijiern

    Yes, stock photography has a place, but come on, an 8 year old image?

    I think it is great when readers - even the anti-CNN crowd - hold the media and bloggers accountable for inaccuracies.

    I would argue that at some point a stock photo itself becomes misleading and inaccurate.
  • Shijieren
    You want 'busted'? This one comes close:

    Just came across this link on Blogdai

    http://nepalnow.blogspot.com/2008/05/no-summit-...

    Not offering it as conclusive proof, but honestly there's far more 'busting' going on there than here...
  • Shijieren
    Seriously, Tom, I can't believe you - who should be more familiar with how 'stock photographs' are used (at any rate, more familiar than the prickly morons at anti-CNN) - used word 'busted'.

    Stock photographs of the sort that BBC has used here are pulled out as visual accompaniments to stories when no 'news pictures' are readily available; they make no claim to being news photographs. Sure, BBC could have tagged the photograph as file picture, but that it didn't isn't a crime.

    Coming as it does from a media culture where photographs are routinely photoshopped to crop out inconvenient leaders, it's a bit rich. But for you to take this forward and claim that the BBC has been 'busted' by anti-CNN is doubly tragic.
  • cerebus
    with all respect, two policemen looking at a computer screen is hardly an "oppression" image. this is hardly stock photo usage "gone wrong". this is exactly how stock images are used: illustratively. they wanted to show a. a policeman, b. a chinese policeman and c. a computer. they didn't claim anything else anywhere in any caption.

    what's offensive about the picture anyway?

    the only busting here is that of anti-cnn for being idiots who would grab at burning, electrified straws, if they could.
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thomascramptonconf

Thomas Crampton was a correspondent for the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times for more than a decade, reporting from five continents, writing a column on Asia and covering Asian politics, economics and culture. Currently based in Hong Kong, he writes here about China, the Internet and New Media seen from Asia, while also advising companies on digital communication strategies. For more information click here...