cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/58845810

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Here is the study: CGTN - China’s Party-State Global TV in Focus

The day the story of the deadly flash floods in Nepal and Tibet broke at the end of August, China’s national broadcaster CCTV led its nightly news program with the release of a book on culture by the country’s leader Xi Jinping. It wasn’t until the second item that the Chinese Communist Party-controlled channel turned its attention to the disaster, in which thousands of people are now known to have died or are missing.

The channel wasn’t being heartless, it was simply acting as it always does, obeying the unspoken order to prioritize flattering news about Xi and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It was also wary of reporting a disaster; anything that could show the Party in a bad light is strictly controlled and censored.

[…]

CCP propaganda and censorship, however, are not restricted to viewers in China. That same broadcast was aired globally on CCTV-4, its Chinese-language overseas arm. In addition, over the past decade, CCTV has been aggressively pushing its English and other foreign-languages channel, CGTN, to viewers around the world. By virtue of its ownership and mission, CGTN follows similar censorship and propaganda guidelines as CCTV, all the while pretending to be a regular news outlet like the BBC or CNN.

While many people are aware of this, CGTN takes great pains to hide it. A few years ago, during our campaign against CCTV and CGTN for airing forced televised confessions (see below), we were in touch with several former CGTN foreign employees and decided to collect stories about how they and other staff experienced the propaganda and censorship from the inside.

[…]

When we asked the former employees about their impressions of the physical work environment at CGTN, they said:

“Armed ‘soliders’ were stationed on the ground floor and around the building’s perimeter.”

Other statements by former employees of CGTN’s English-language edition (sample, the study provides a lot more):

“In Western newsrooms, it’s loud and mad and busy and exciting, adrenaline is pumping, there’s people having heated debates across the room. That newsroom in China was like a library.” …

"But it was nothing similar to any other journalism or newsrooms I’d been working in. There was so much spare time, you could nearly read books half the day.” …

"Three quarters of the rundown is all Xi Jinping news.” …

"I didn’t think I would necessarily mind the propaganda—I’m just a subeditor. My name’s not on there, my face isn’t up there. But it did, it bothered me a lot. There’s no way you cannot be affected by it… Embarrassment, shock, disappointment, complete disbelief at the kinds of standards, kinds of nonsense you’d have to put up and say that’s news.” …

"I knew certain things just didn’t get reported on at CGTN, yeah it was a case of self-censorship.” …

“When the Zhuhai-Hong Kong-Macau Bridge opened, I wanted to do a people’s reaction [piece]…[talk to] people that had negative reactions to the bridge. All our stories… were positive stories… Knowing the Chinese government wouldn’t want a story to the contrary, I just didn’t suggest it.” …

“As copy editors, we didn’t try to insert more details that we knew would not get passed by the laoshis.” - [Laoshis are censors, checking for political correctness. As non-native English speakers, the laoshis were not editors.] …

"I would not be able to change my own questions or even the order of the questions.” …

"“I was talking on air to a guest and I asked the third question second. I got yelled at. It was insane. I was on air with this person [program manager or producer] yelling in my ear.” …

“When they [CGTN staff] had to rely on their own judgment, they became paralyzed with indecision because of course they’re not used to using their own judgment and are fully aware of how treacherous that can be.”

[…]