- Sun
- Feb 24, 2013
- Updated: 10:45pm
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Connecticut school shooting
On December 14, 2012, a man wearing combat gear and armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in the Sandy Hook village of Newtown, Connecticut, US, where he fatally shot 20 children and 7 adults. The gunman, identified as Adam Lanza, age 20, most likely shot and killed himself during the incident. The gunman had earlier shot and killed his mother at their residence prior to the shooting at the school. Lanza's girlfriend has also been reported missing in New Jersey.
China's lopsided coverage of school attacks slammed
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The Chinese media were strongly criticised by the public for giving the US Sandy Hook school shooting extensive coverage, while "playing down" an attack on a mainland primary school which left 23 students injured.
China Central Television's lead in Saturday's news round-up was the Newtown school shooting in the US state of Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed by a lone gunman, who then killed himself.
This marked the first time in 26 years that the state mouthpiece began with foreign news since the Challenger space shuttle disaster in 1986.
Meanwhile, the Guangzhou-based tabloid Southern Metropolis Daily devoted just one-quarter of an inside page on Saturday to news of the 23 students attacked by knife-wielding man in Guangshan county, Henan . In contrast, there was a headline story and a four-page detailed report on the Newtown shooting on Sunday.
Former China Youth Daily editor Li Datong suggested the restrained coverage of the Henan attack was a result of a state ban. Meanwhile, he said the disproportionate coverage of the US story was based on Xi Jinping's order to play up stories with news values.
"Obviously, state media have received bans from the propaganda authorities, requiring them not to focus on the Henan school attack," Li said.
Although the Guangshan county government released news of the knife attack on its website at around noon on Friday, it attempted to play it down, including by cancelling a press conference and ordering officials not to say anything about it, Xinhua reported.
The controversial coverage of the school attacks, both occurring on Friday, triggered huge criticism from the online community.
On Sina Weibo, a post critical of the media by online commentator "Zuoyeben" was reposted more than 150,000 times and drew 40,000 comments.
"CCTV has spent an entire afternoon reporting and analysing the Newtown school shooting in the United States," he wrote. "They count the total number of school shootings, try to dig out the [root causes], give suggestions on reforms, estimate the number of guns and potential risk, as well as condemn President [Barack] Obama."
"You guys are so professional and conscientious, but why don't you report on the Henan man who hacked 22 students?" he said.
Military writer Zhao Chu called the treatment of the Henan hacking story as "a kind of unforgivable unconcern towards compatriots' lives".
"I must say, I'm more concerned with the children in Henan," he wrote. "Such vile cases happen again and again [in China], and the state media haven't given them enough coverage and discussion."
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11:13am
Now what if guns in China were more readily available, perhaps then the Henan attack would have been a lot more lethal. The point here I think is that the comparison is between 1) society problems that creates individuals who do these attacks; both US and China have several of these incidents with mentally disturbed individuals and 2) gun laws; China has strict gun control, USA very few
10:02am
You could start by comparing like with like. In Connecticut 26 people including kids lie dead the victims of a carefully planned and executed mass murder and then suicide, facilitated by Americans' obsession with guns and their general acceptance of violence. In Guangshan County 22 children and an elderly women were injured (only two seriously) by a mental person who suddenly went berserk with a knife. Nobody died
Yes, junior local officials erred in initially trying to block this news but the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, soon put this right and severely criticized these local officials for attempting to block this information and also for their lax post-crisis management.
And as for your interpretation that "Chinese media were strongly criticized by the public". Which blogs did you get this from? I haven't seen signs of mass demonstrations in the streets of China about this......only senseless twitter on the internet from the usual hate China suspects.
Trying for a job with Fox News are we? Keep it up they just love stories like yours.
