A Ma fan in a local office.Ma Ying-jeou was on CNN's Talk Asia the other day. PART 1, PART 2. The CNN text is a priceless mishmash of KMT talking points and erroneous information that is insulting to both Ma and its readers. Here is the header....
....which refers to "premier" Ma. In the text, after a short intro, come the KMT talking points:With the backdrop of economic depression Ma's calls to reinvigorate the economy by freer trade and improved relations with China proved stronger than the fears that those ties could lead to a loss in independence.
In case you didn't notice, 5.7% growth last year and 6% growth in the first half of this year is "economic depression." And people wonder why Americans don't know anything about the outside world.
Of course, you know what follows on the heels of that nonsense: The Claim That Won't Die:
Born in Hong Kong in 1950, Ma studied at Harvard Law School and worked as a lawyer in New York in 1981 before returning Taiwan.
Was Ma a lawyer in NY? AFAIK he never passed the Bar there.
And then there is tourism...
Ma's administration hopes that Chinese tourists from the mainland will boost the sluggish tourism industry and talks are already underway to increase the number of weekly flights."Sluggish tourism industry?" Weren't the last three years all record breakers?
*sigh*
UPDATE: I checked again on July 30, 2008, 15 days after the story was posted and after several of us wrote in. Ma is still premier, and the KMT talking points are still there.
[Taiwan]
11 comments:
Well. CNN was famous for being an "fast news network" not for being good "news network". aside that they did Australia into asian continent. so nothing new here.
*Sigh*
What I find appalling is the attitude of the reporter. She couldn't conceal -not tried to- her contempt towards Chen, while fawning over Ma like a groupie.
"Premier" Ma ??!! Icky.
I can't bring myself to watch it. I saw the shorts and that was enough to make me puke.
I especially love how the interviewer refers to the opposition as "the Green Party." Evidently basic fact-checking is too much to expect from CNN.
Anon, to be fair, a lot of orgs group Aussieland as a part of Asia or "Asia-Pacific" out of convenience. BBC does too. My company often does as well.
As for Ma, he makes a lot of ignorant people optimistic because they see in him what they want to see rather than what is really there.
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Ladies and gentlemen,
That's what we call a "puff piece".
Oh! Did they laugh and laugh and had a jolly good time.
I contrast this segment with the BBC "Hardline" piece (or whatever it was called) a few years ago. The BBC actually asked tough questions. I distinctly remember PandaMa being quite uncomfortable in that piece where he was contradicting himself left and right.
Oh well. How do you stay so very fit, Premier Ma?
CNN does the exact same thing with war criminal Bush. We're talking about the same network that gives the likes of Glen Beck airtime, afterall.
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I like how Ma had a meeting with his Prime Minister on the plane (didn't know Taiwan had a PM).
"The contrast with the pillaging of the island by the KMT when two million of its soldiers and hangers-on fled to Taiwan after being defeated by the communists in China in 1949 was profound."
Nice.
"Ma, however, took the belligerent course of dispatching nine Taiwanese naval vessels to the waters around the Tiaoyutai."
At least this is consistent with other international media in always blaming Taiwan for any difficulties. Didn't the Japanese had naval vessels there already? What was it that ran into the fishing ship?
Puff piece? Just wait until they interview Obama.
Oh my god! I can't believe I managed to watch the first part of the interview. It was painful.
What kind of journalist is that woman? She was just feeding him all those feel-good lines and never confronted him with anything.
Even though she might not be familiar enough with the Taiwan politics to know if what Ma said is true or false, she should know that the current high oil price and food prices did not "just occurred all of a sudden in recent two months" as Ma has claimed.
What a cry-baby!
Meg
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