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I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

sixthtone.com

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Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#61

Post by peteretep »

wangii wrote: post #55
peteretep wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not providing a definition of propaganda, I'm describing a _characteristic_ of effective propaganda. The test for whether something is propaganda is nicely defined in Wikipedia, which is "[whether it] is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda".

OK. so is there any article is not to written to `influence an audience and further an agenda`. Everybody's playing the game But nobody's rules are the same Nobody's on nobody's side

You've omitted the word "primarily" in your quote, and it was an important one. But let's take a British tabloid like the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail has a distinct agenda, but the _primary_ purpose of content in the Daily Mail is to sell copies of the Daily Mail. The Economist has an unrelenting neo-liberal agenda, but again the primary purpose of content in The Economist is to sell copies of The Economist. These publications are rarely considered to be propaganda.

Some commercial or semi-commercial publications explicitly have aims of propaganda. The Guardian was founded to explicitly push an agenda, for example. Generally one tends to refer to this as "media bias" or "editorial slant" to distinguish it from propaganda pushed by governments.

This doesn't necessarily imply that all state-owned or non-commercial news outlets are propaganda, although I think one's starting assumption should be that they are. The BBC's World Service definitely serves (served?) the British Government's aims abroad, and was explicitly funded as such. _However_, good-faith accusations of it publishing propaganda are pretty rare, presumably because it's considered more useful by the UK to be a publisher of news that people will believe, rather than pushing a specific angle.

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#62

Post by Cthulhu_ »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #13
baybal2 wrote: post #7

FYI, this publication, and its parent is pretty much People's Daily in disguise. It is made along the lines of Shanghai Oriental Morning Post 2.0. Without a doubt, it is an even more of a state organ media than it's spiritual predecessor, despite the mandate to push "dissenting" view. Unlike something like Southern Weekly, which had not a single party cadre in its editors, despite being overtly party ran, but closed…

I'm surprised that they let him admit that he arrived to a ward covered in rubbish and medical waste staffed only by two opthamologists and two nurses tbh. At -2 (and counting) for this currently, any downvoters care to comment as to why? If indeed this publication is a propaganda mouthpiece, then my surprise that they're publishing something that reflects badly on their medical providers should be easy to understand

It's a classic hero's journey kinda article - a few paragraphs later the author does some chest-beating about how they made some small changes which (miraculously, given the existing conditions) avoided having ANY medical staff infected - a bold claim, too good to be true given the situation when they came in.

I mean a lot of stories posted on HN are about how things were shit but how a hero came in and fixed things. The article wouldn't have worked if it was someone coming into a ward where everything was already great - there would be nothing to improve, nothing to be proud of, and if anything they could only talk about how bad things were. You want an upwards story, not a flat one.

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#63

Post by knolax »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #34
wakenmeng wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there are a lot of posts(pics, videos) on China social media from doctors showing they were lack of PPE, and using even plastic bags. It is not they said that china gov controls all media and social posts. And most of the videos u saw on twitter which gov staffs' violence are posted on Chinese social media first to explore and report this to the gov. They are just similar to other countries' gov staffs' enfo…

> Actually there are a lot of posts(pics, videos) on China social media from doctors showing they were lack of PPE, and using even plastic bags. Agreed. But, that still wouldn't stop the CCP from trying to deny that it happened or continues to take place, just as they're actively lying about the death count in just Wuhan as many locals reported that crematoriums were running 24/7 and urns were being delivered by the…

The article you cite lists no source for the crematorium factoid. In addition to that, it also cites the Daily Mail, a tabloid that is banned from Wikipedia. If you google around for the crematorium factoid, you will find that almost all articles about it cite reports by the Epoch Times[0]. The Epoch Times is a bona fide propaganda outlet[1] that pushes objectively false antivaxx and QAnon conspiracy theories. Their initial report consisted of them sending random people to count cars going into a single funeral home and trying to extrapolate that into the entire region. If you're willing to be critical of Sixth Tone, then please display similar criticality towards other media as well.

[0] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/we-cant-stop-funeral...

"We need to pick up bodies when they call us. Every day, we need at least 100 body bags," a crematorium worker named Mr. Yun told the Epoch Times"

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Epoch_Times

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#64

Post by robocat »

ngokevin wrote: post #56
killjoywashere wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but about what's amplified and not amplified Makes Chinese ownership in reddit even more concerning, no?

The hatred of China in Western media is amplified to the max. Sometimes I think we're the ones being washed.

> The hatred of China in Western media

That’s a very broad brush. I can see why you might say that about US media, but can you justify saying that about “Western” media?

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#65

Post by akiselev »

peteretep wrote: post #49
Markoff wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not visible, been recently to r/worldnews ? everything criticisng China downvoted into oblivion if not straight deleted/banned

Occam's razor says this is bots rather than anything being done via "official" Reddit channels.

That's a defining feature of "plausible deniability."

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#66

Post by chippy »

baybal2 wrote: post #7

FYI, this publication, and its parent is pretty much People's Daily in disguise. It is made along the lines of Shanghai Oriental Morning Post 2.0. Without a doubt, it is an even more of a state organ media than it's spiritual predecessor, despite the mandate to push "dissenting" view. Unlike something like Southern Weekly, which had not a single party cadre in its editors, despite being overtly party ran, but closed…

What stood out for me was the doctor was from Guangdong which is essentially the Cantonese speaking part of China and right next to Hong Kong. Secondly the references to English speaking friends (I guess that's a normal journalistic thing to make it internationally relevant) and finally the subtle jab at the US response.

What's most interesting generally about this is where criticism is allowed in China. And it is actually allowed - but the main culprits are the governments of Wuhan and Hubei region and that it's the central government that is responsible for rescuing and clearing up their act. There wasn't too much of this in this article, but there was a little bit between the lines.

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#67

Post by [deleted] »

tly_alex wrote: post #19
baybal2 wrote: post #7

FYI, this publication, and its parent is pretty much People's Daily in disguise. It is made along the lines of Shanghai Oriental Morning Post 2.0. Without a doubt, it is an even more of a state organ media than it's spiritual predecessor, despite the mandate to push "dissenting" view. Unlike something like Southern Weekly, which had not a single party cadre in its editors, despite being overtly party ran, but closed…

I would love to see what's wrong with this particular article that's not true. From what I am reading, most of the piece was based on the the doctor's experience.

[deleted]

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#68

Post by rjsw »

redis_mlc wrote: post #29
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically, our best chance now is not to cure them, but to help them survive until their immune system fight it off?

It's more subtle than that. Here's some background before I answer your question. One doctor has said that corona patients should be treated like altitude sickness patients, not like viral patients (and this Wuhan article implies that.) All doctors say that ventilator intubation is the equivalent of major surgery, requiring anesthetics for the duration of ventilation and a long recovery period. High air pressure dama…

One thing that might help for the general population could be iron supplements. Not to prevent infection but to help the body to respond to low oxygen levels if you become infected.

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#69

Post by knolax »

chippy wrote: post #66
baybal2 wrote: post #7

FYI, this publication, and its parent is pretty much People's Daily in disguise. It is made along the lines of Shanghai Oriental Morning Post 2.0. Without a doubt, it is an even more of a state organ media than it's spiritual predecessor, despite the mandate to push "dissenting" view. Unlike something like Southern Weekly, which had not a single party cadre in its editors, despite being overtly party ran, but closed…

What stood out for me was the doctor was from Guangdong which is essentially the Cantonese speaking part of China and right next to Hong Kong. Secondly the references to English speaking friends (I guess that's a normal journalistic thing to make it internationally relevant) and finally the subtle jab at the US response. What's most interesting generally about this is where criticism is allowed in China. And it is ac…

What stood out about the author being from Guangdong? It's one of the most populous and economically/culturally influential regions of the country. Also Canton is just an archaic spelling of Guangdong, similar to Peking/Beijing.

Re: I Spent Seven Weeks in a Wuhan ICU

#70

Post by bhanhfo »

knolax wrote: post #50
peteretep wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda is not about what's true and not true, but about what's amplified and not amplified. I'm sure literally every word of this moving piece about a brave Chinese doctor overcoming adversity to help heal her countrymen is true. I suspect an article in Western-style media might have been a little less quick to let the government off the hook though: > The main problem wasn’t poor preparation, but the sudden infl…

Disclaimer: I don't agree with the opinions presented on Sixth Tone or any other publication for that matter. We've now progressed to the point where even objectively true information that isn't prefaced with "I HATE THE CCP" is considered propaganda. Imagine if somebody told you that NPR was Democrat backed liberal propaganda not because it provided false information, but because it wasn't as critical of progressive…

"where even objectively true information"... do you have an example of this? What kind of recent news do you have in mind?

So far, all the Covid19 stats out of China proofed to be fake. But I am happy to stand corrected. What numbers proofed to be correct in hindsight?

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