CNN Reporter Detained in China for Holding Anti-Obama T-Shirt

[RamboLiberal]

CNN Beijing correspondent Emily Chang was detained for two hours today by authorities in Shanghai for holding up a t-shirt that depicts Pres. Obama wearing a Red Army uniform.

Chang bought the t-shirt at a basement souvenir shop in Beijing and brought it with her to Shanghai as she covers Pres. Obama's visit to the city.

When Chang held up the shirt up for a live shot outside a Shanghai metro stop, she was approached by two security guards. "They scrambled towards us and tried to pry the shirt out of my cold, dead hands," Chang writes on the In the Field blog. "I didn't give in." Despite "a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle," the crew kept the shirt.

The front of the t-shirt says "Serve the People" in Chinese. On the back, it reads "Oba Mao" in English. The shirts have been seen in Chinese shops for months, but were "banned" ahead of Obama's trip.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/cnn_reporter_detained_in_china_for_holding_antiobama_tshirt_143302.asp

[SteppingRazor]

1. I'm not sure that, in China, those shirts are necessarily anti-Obama. n/t

[still_one]

3. I suspect the reporter wanted to make a negative association with Obama regardless

whether the shirt were banned or not

cnn is the same as most of the other MSM entertainment tonight U.S. news outlets

The big stories as far as they are concerned are bowing before Japanese officials, this shirt, and the like

How about trade, jobs, etc?

Maybe they should interview palin or cheney's daughter on what they think?

Of course if they were trying to show the corruption in China, and lack of freedoms, fine, but when have I seen any significant time from our whores in media show how lobbyists and corruptions actually run our government?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

29. CNN was taught a lesson

[no_hypocrisy]

2. You mean Glenn Beck didn't have them printed for the occasion?

[damntexdem]

4. Anti-Obama shirts?

The security folks more likely thought she was dissing the Chinese Communist Party.

[ThatPoetGuy]

5. This is stunning, and that reporter should be fired.

Why was it so important to her to keep that shirt? Because it would help turn Americans against Obama?

They would have had to "pry" the shirt from her "cold, dead hands," she said, invoking a classic line of right-wing propaganda.

[onenote]

7. why should she be fired exactly?

Is reporting a firable offense?

[DRoseDARs]

9. Don't bother. People have convinced themselves that a pro-Obama t-shirt is anti-Obama...

...based solely on the fact that in the US "communism" and "socialism" have become ooga-booga words on the right. This "anti-Obama" coloration of the story is divorced from the reality of the context the t-shirts were created in, namely they were printed in a communist country by a communist people who actually LIKE Obama, who just happens to NOT be a communist. The t-shirts are ironic, like Che Guerra merchandising. The irony is lost in the translation, apparently.

[hileeopnyn8d]

11. I didn't convince myself of anything

and a couple others commented that they didn't think it was an "anti-Obama" t-shirt.

That said, after reading what SHE wrote, as opposed to what article in the OP says, it looks like they've completely misquoted her.

For instance, she never said "cold dead hands," which was my only pet peeve about the whole thing. ;)

[ThatPoetGuy]

14. You are right.

The article claims that she wrote "cold, dead hands," but the blog doesn't say "cold" or "dead." Either she edited it out, or the article's writer wrote it in. Appealing to the rhetoric of the far-right usually indicates some skewed thinking.

I fail to see how she was "reporting," though. What was she reporting on? The fact that those shirts exist? We already knew that. The American right wing is using those shirts to convince saps that Obama is a communist, and I don't see any legitimate journalistic goal in "reporting" that those shirts exist to a populace that already knows it.

[onenote]

24. "we already knew that"?

Sorry, you may have known about the shirts, but I sure as hell didn't and I suspect lots of other people didn't. I found it interesting. I'm sure lots of people didn't. Is it your rule that someone should get fired for reporting something that you or others "already know about"?

[Arkana]

13. Yeah--those shirts, while rather offensive to me, really aren't to millions

of Chinese who "adored" Mao Zedong.

[ThatPoetGuy]

16. The creators' intentions are irrelevant.

We're not saying the Chinese hate Obama. We're saying the right-wing demagogues are using these shirts to dupe Americans into thinking Obama is a bad guy. I don't see any authentic journalistic goal in obtaining one of these shirts, which have already been reported on and photographed. Do you?

People in the midst of saying inane things are quick to see irony in the views of the clear-headed. That's funny.

[DRoseDARs]

18. But you're projecting US politics onto Chinese culture and she blogged about her run in getting one

...not the non-existent "reporting" being whined about here.

[ThatPoetGuy]

19. What does Chinese culture matter to the shifting debates here?

It doesn't matter if it's a mistranslation. It doesn't matter if they love the president or hate him. What matters, here and now, is the way certain pundits are using this to trash Obama. It's hard for us to parse it all out -- 1) the makers of that shirt do not intend it as an insult, but 2) right-wing ideologues are using it to turn Americans against the president, even though 3) communism isn't the ultimate evil that the loons portray it as.

[ThatPoetGuy]

17. What was she "reporting"?

The article may have misquoted her, or maybe she edited her blog, so I'm less certain that she should be fired. But there was no story in the continued existence of these shirts, no news, no possible journalistic aim, until she _made_ news. And that is bad journalism.

[onenote]

25. bull.

The fact that these shirts exist is a perfectly valid thing to report on. Hell, the existence of Bon Jovi t-shirts is a valid thing to report on. I see nothing sinister in it and in fact learned about something I hadn't previously heard about -- i.e, the existence of these shirts.

The concept of the first amendment, editorial privilege, etc. seems completely foreign to some here, which is truly sad.

[rebel with a cause]

26. My questions about all this would be....

What made it so important for her to hang on to this shirt when the security guys tried to take it away from her?

If her point was to report on the existence of the shirt could she have not done so from another spot than where Obama was to appear? If the guards took the shirt away could she not have gotten another one and shown it? Why was this shirt in particular so important?

Don't want to see her fired but probably not interested in seeing her on the news either. But then I chose just not to watch CNN.

[onenote]

27. the fact that security guys in china are trying to suppress information from being reported

is noteworthy. If you can't see that, I'm sorry for you.

Imagine the following: a reporter goes into a mall and picks up a shirt that makes fun of Sarah Palin (or for that matter applauds sarah palin) and holds it up for the camera. The police try to grab the shirt.

Are you seriously telling me that the reporter simply should let go of the shirt and go somewhere else?

[rebel with a cause]

30. That the security person took the shirt would be news worthy

but to fight a foreign policeman is a little questionable in my way of thinking when what you are fighting for is a t-shirt. If she was fighting for the safety of another human being or to save an animal in peril then that would be different. If you want to feel sorry for me do so.

If this happened in the USA? Oh wait a minute, it did happen in the USA for eight years when people were put in "freedom zones" far from where anything was happening and the news people didn't seem to care enough to report on what they were saying or why they were being put there. People who wore anti-bush shirts were arrested and forcibly taken out of bushcheney places of appearances. I didn't hear much of an outcry from the MSM when this happened or even much coverage. It seems to be different when our police are doing it and when those communist over there do it. Huh?

If you are in a foreign country..then you have to follow their laws and respect their law officials, so yes a reporter should have questioned why the shirt was being taken but then should have let it go with a respectful protest of its taking. If one ignores what ones own government is doing for eight years and then goes against the police of another country just to show a shirt one thinks might show disrespect for ones current president, then I question where ones priorities are. Feel sorry for me all you want but that won't make me change my opinion on this.

[JTFrog]

+1

:thumbsup:

[hileeopnyn8d]

6. If she could write

about it on a blog, then her hands were not 'cold and dead,' but the ghost of journalism past is rolling in the grave.

[surrealAmerican]

12. I certainly does make it sound like they killed her hands.

Was she perhaps typing with her feet?

You would expect a professional journalist to pay a little more attention to her choice of words.

[DRoseDARs]

8. *sigh* Herd mentality in this thread...

The spin that this is an "anti-Obama" t-shirt appears to be just spin, derived from nothing more than the fact that Chinese officials banned it ahead of Pres. Obama's visit instead of the actual content of the t-shirt. Whoop-dee-doo, it's a communism-tinted t-shirt ... IN A COMMUNIST COUNTRY. Shocking, and would one of you explain how "Serve the People" is anti-Obama? Isn't that the fucking job of a US president?

From her blog post on CNN:
Obama communist T-Shirt Tussle
"During our flight from Beijing to Shanghai to cover the President's arrival, a news blitz indicated the shirts had been "banned" by the Chinese government amid worries that they may offend the American president."

[ThatPoetGuy]

15. It's so interesting to hear the sheep bleat "you're all a herd" amidst their baa-ing.

The makers of the shirt are not anti-Obama. The journalists and bloggers who bring it unendingly into the public discourse are anti-Obama. They aim to conflate "Oba-Mao" with Anita Dunn's comment and push their audience into more irrational hatred of the president.

The intention of the makers, the designers, and the sellers has no bearing on the discussion, no matter how much you bleat about it.

[Egnever]

31. I think the person you are responding to

Agrees with you.

[vaberella]

10. That isn't an anti-Obama shirt. Weird. n/

[DrToast]

20. What the hell was Lou Dobbs doing in China? And I thought they fired him! (nt)

[Canuckistanian]

21. Is this a parody?

A CNN reporter fighting with Chinese security forces over a shirt depicting Obama as Chairman Mao?

And what's with the "cold, dead hands" reference? Why did she risk arrest for stupid shirt?

A definite head-scratcher.

[Garam_Masala]

22. Why is OBAMAO anti-Obama when Mao has God like status in China?

In US...yes, not in China IMO.

If the shirt said OBAMOOSEVELT in US, it would be good not bad.

[Ozymanithrax]

23. Clearly, different cultures view this shirt in different ways.

But it does speak volumes that China tried to keep the shirt out of the limelight. The government certainly knows it will be viewed as negative East of the Pacific.

[Hekate]

28. Just what we need. How long before Cafe Press has one of these in its anti-Obama section?

I don't really give a rat's * what the intention of the Chinese graphic artist was -- we don't live in China, we live here. This image of Obama-as-Commie is going to go over very well with Freepers, but we already knew that. x(

Hekate

edited for misplaced apostrophe

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