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BEIJING : Life in Lhasa may have returned to normal somewhat following the March 14 riots, but the conflicting media coverage about what really happened has sparked off a controversy on the Internet between the Chinese and foreign media.
Chinese officials call the Dalai Lama a hypocrite, an instigator of a separatist movement that aims to tear China and Tibet apart. But outside China, the western media hail him as a Nobel Laureate for peace, an oppressed, mild-mannered monk.
The Lhasa riot which began on March 14 was deemed a "crackdown on dissidents" by some media outside China. To the Chinese government, it was protecting innocent civilians.
The conflicting points of views have sparked off a controversy in China.
An anti-CNN website (www.anti-cnn.com), reportedly started by a 23-year-old youth, proclaims to expose the distorted reports by the so-called "western media" - including the CNN, BBC, Fox News and NTV of Germany, among others.
These western media are accused of referring to Nepalese soldiers as Chinese soldiers and cropping photographs of the riots to show only the military and not the rioters.
Two German media have since apologised for these errors, but other charges from the website remain debatable.
The site's collection of what it calls "evidence" of biased reports is making its rounds on the Internet and local newspapers.
The founders of www.anti-cnn.com have not responded to Channel NewsAsia's request for interviews.
On the website, the founders said they are not against the western media, but against the lies, fabricated stories and the prejudice from western society.
Members of the foreign media said such accusations are unfair. They aired their views during a recent discussion forum held in Beijing.
"People should be able to talk without the fear or retribution. (But) that fear is very, very strong, as I've never felt in the past two weeks of China covering the disturbances in Tibetan communities," said Jonathan Watts, East Asia correspondent of The Guardian.
Beneath the standoff lies a communication problem, said Jeremy Goldkorn, founder of the Weblog, www.Danwei.org, which monitors Chinese news.
"They (China) need to stop using the Cultural Revolution vocabulary. They need to stop calling the Dalai Lama the devil. They need to stop saying a tiny minority of monks organised the whole thing, because for all the good that the Chinese have done, it's clear that a group of people are not happy, and to not recognise this appears deceitful," said Goldkorn.
But the ongoing online debate can only be a good thing, said Goldkorn.
He said: "I think exposure to stuff like anti-CNN.com, exposure to different voices does make western media reporting better because it questions their fundamentals, values and it questions their attitude.
"The same thing is happening in the Chinese media, although in a slightly different way. For one thing, the information in China is very porous, unlike it used to be. So, when there's a problem in the country, you can't hide it. It means that government propaganda has to be more in line with what people are actually seeing or thinking."
There is a new phrase that's circulating on the Internet these days - zuo ren bu neng CNN - which means one should not be biased like certain foreign media.
The explosion of blogs is also allowing individual Chinese, not only to offer, but also to get an alternative insight to the official point of view. - CNA /ls
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