CCTV FOLLIES 3.12 BACKWARDS TO BUSINESS AS USUAL!
CCTV rocks it with Xi, Xi and Xi! -To put things in perspective, the news will be presented backwards today, with Xi last -Foreign news is negative and bad -China domestic news is glowing and good!!!
The news-hungry, news-hole devouring Two Meetings are finally over!
On the one hand, CCTV is once again free to indulge in its favorite foreign topics, such as crime and gun violence in the US, disorder in Europe, Russia’s bangup special military operation in Ukraine and radiation in Japan. Other updates from the troubled outside world today include reports from Gaza, Haiti, Jamaica and Venezuela.
On the other hand, the domestic news sees the resumption of the tedioius Xi personality cult, with re-runs and best hits of Xi pointing at things in the near and distant past. Perhaps it’s inspiring to some to see pictures of Xi over and over, day in and day out and hear incessant praise in his name, at least if you’re drinking CCP’s Xi-spiked red Kool-aid and need to know the party line, but for the rest of the world, well, it’s a bit of the bore, to be honest, and not entirely inspiring, so that section has been saved for last in today’s round-up.
Serving up “bad news from a bad country” is a CCTV specialty, and today the big closing story is about rampant crime and gun violence in the USA.
This is by far the most effective propaganda of the day because it’s true. It makes the US look bad and it’s something the US should rightly be ashamed of. CCTV need only air US footage and US statistics to make the US fit into Xi’s favorite narrative that the US is a country in steep decline.
Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey and Florida are among the hot spots. US tabulated data reproduced by CCTV shows, on average, a major shooting incident for every day of this year.
The map labels Jamaica but the news is mostly about nearby Haiti.
Haiti Prime Minister, taking refuge in Jamaica, resigns.
Haiti’s security worsens…
Emergency meeting in Jamaica to discuss Haiti problem.
Venezuela complains about economic losses due to US sanctions.
An IL-76 aircraft military transport plane crashes near Moscow. It is rare for CCTV to air negative news about Russia given the usual preferential treatment, bilateral media agreements and close ties between Putin and Xi.
Japan gets bashed on a regular basis, so this segment is no surprise. What’s surprising is that the worst CCTV can come up with on Japan are lawful demonstrations by Japanese citizens bringing attention to legitimate and lingering fears about Fukushima radiation disposal issues, especially in the sea.
Some startling images and stats on the non-war war that CCTV stubbornly refers to euphemistically as the “Ukraine Crisis”
Russian footage of Russia doing its thing.
Fair and balanced CCTV shows Ukraine fighting back.
CCTV doesn’t just give you the pictures, it digs up the root causes of the conflict.
“European weapons imports up 94% over previous five year period”
And now for the punchline...
US weapons exports up, too, representing 42% of the global arms market.
CCTV’s Gaza report opens with some striking IDF footage but the narrative focus is based on Hamas sources and Hamas images dominate.
Hamas close-ups of stealth attacks constitute most of today’s coverage.
Today’s summary put the foreign news on top for a change of focus, but here is a reminder it opened the other way around in the broadcast.
The news is uniformly presented hierarchically in descending order according to CCTV tacit editorial rules of respect.
The news starts with Xi, of course, of course, and then China, then some heartwarming domestic news bits, then foreign praise of Xi and China, then Russia, Gaza, etc and with the worst news (usually the US) presented dead last.
Today’s foreign news opened with praise and acclaim for Xi and the Two Meetings. Praise resounded around the world. CCTV presents top international personages from Russia, Congo, South Africa, US, Egypt, Brazil and Pakistan basically saying how lucky the world is to have Xi-led China at the helm.
The domestic news today was composed of many pretty pictures, with an inordinate emphasis on glorious sunsets.
Pro-tip to CCTV editors: Sunsets are pretty but often associated with decline
The news opened with mist-covered hills and glorious aerial shots of China which can only mean one thing…
Xi’s coming!
Trigger warning: Sixteen striking screenshots of Xi Jinping mixing it up with mother nature and mingling with members of humankind illustrate today’s top story.
Alas, the personality cult never sleeps, even if the news editors have to dig deep into last year’s archives and put up a bunch of re-runs to tell today’s story of Xi’s China well to the global commons of shared humanity.
Editor’s note: This section of the news will be put firmly behind the paywall in order to keep any Xi-addicts among free followers of the Follies from freebasing and possibly overdosing on too much Xi.