US media expert criticizes western media for distorted coverage of Tibet
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There is increasing criticism of the Western media's incomplete and biased coverage of the recent situation in Tibet and the Olympic torch relay. And people in the West are also among the critics.
CCTV reporter in Washington spoke with Professor Amos Gelb, a media studies expert at George Washington University. He says some Western media play tricks with their cameras and only presented a partial or even distorted coverage of what happened in Tibet.
Professor Amos Gelb from George Washington University said, "The camera can lie. The camera can give you snapshots, a little picture that makes you think something is happening. So in the torch relay. It's just a few people along the way causing problems. It's not the whole population of Paris or the entire population of England doing this. Same thing in Tibet. You see these snapshots on American television, which is just a picture, it's hard to know what's really happening because the camera doesn't give an exact representation of everything."
Professor Gelb also says the lack of knowledge about Tibet's history and China's rapid development is one cause of the Western media's biased reports about Tibet.
Professor Amos Gelb said, "The western attitude towards China is in many ways is still stuck in the past images. There is a mystique about China, and it doesn't quite get beyond that. So either for history or historical events, there is a sense of mysterious senses that they don't quite understand. Everybody who goes there will find it wonderful, interesting. But the actual complication of issues that face China are really fully understood outside China. China has had such incredible development in the past 20 years. It's hard even for people who go there often to fully understand what's happening."
