[blam]

"I only believe about 10% of the news reports I read or hear out of China. Roughly the same percentage of what I believe from American media."

You are very wise grasshopper.

[Chengdu54]

I’m in China quite frequently and with a VPN I’m able to continually read and listen to western news stories. In summer 2008 they were claiming that there was an armed soldier on every Beijing street corner - I never saw a single one. They claimed that the sun never shined in Beijing - not true.Last Christmas, it was claimed that China had banned Christmas celebrations - at the same time there were dancing Santas outside restaurants and religious carols being played inside department stores.

I think in general it’s a mistake nowadays to trust any news outlet anywhere with any report that you can’t verify through other means.