That is true. 15 or so years ago the press was painting the Uighurs as peaceful muslims that the evil totalitarian Chinese government was oppressing. Of course the ChiCom government is evil and totalitarian in many ways but it was kind of a flip-flop from the way the western press fell all over itself to print any apologist screed that Mao and his thugs put out while they were invading Tibet and slaughtering 1.5 million of them.
It was only later, after Tibet was a certain lost cause, that the western press decided that conquering them was wrong.
I guess my takeaway from all of this history is that if you really want to find evil ... look at the press.