A Panicked China Orders Media To Stick To “Positive Reporting” Or Risk “The Stability Of The Country”
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
02/22/2016
If China’s recent record surge in loan creation, and its revision of a key PBOC capital outflow “data” wasn’t sufficient proof that the world’s second largest economy is on the verge of panic, then the explicit propaganda directive issued to the the local press by China’s president Xi Jinping late on Friday should certainly seal it.
As SCMP reports, according to a commentary published by a leading mouthpiece online “having public opinions that are different from the official ones will shake the foundation of the rule of the Communist party and the country.”
Xiakedao, a social media account operated by the overseas edition of People’s Daily, said in a commentary on Friday’s high-profile tour by President Xi Jinping to the three largest state media outlets – People’s Daily, Xinhua and Central China Television — “that the party was alarmed by how different public opinion is from official media.”
Sure enough, it is time to remind “public opinion” influenced largely by the unofficial media who is boss.
There are two spheres for opinions — official and unofficial media. The latter refers to social media or means of communications not controlled by the party.
“Information dissemination is diversified and fragmented. A real army is no rival of the guerilla (opinions spreading on social media). It becomes a crisis of traditional media,” the commentary said. “Official and unofficial opinions are very different … and even contradictory,” it said.
Unofficial opinions are different because what the public experiences is different from what is described by official media.
Perhaps that is because the “unofficial opinions” tend to reflect reality, not the communist party’s communist ivory tower which over the past few months have been dangerously shaking.
And in the starkest warning to the uncontrolled media to toe the party lines, the Friday commentary warned that “if the gap lasts, it will erode the legitimacy of the rule, and distabilise the root of the party and the state,” it said.
The Rest…HERE
