Wall Street Journal's deliberate distortions
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I haven't read the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for a long time. Several days ago, a friend told me that a comment on my article about iPad had been published at its website, and he also gave me the links.
My article "iPad is a fashion" first appeared in People's Daily, and then as my column in the Global Times on October 13. After it was published, it attracted the attention of some Chinese netizens. But I didn't expect it had "disturbed" the WSJ.
After reading this article at the WSJ website, I found the title too exaggerated, "People's Daily: iPad cool, but not pirate-friendly." The piece, written by WSJ reporter Owen Fletcher, was clearly taking a strong point of view. Even before I read it, I knew Fletcher was going to make a fuss about privacy.
As expected, the article starts with "The ruling Chinese Communist Party is not often linked with cutting-edge technology, or tech fashion, but a recent column in its official newspaper nonetheless gives loyal readers a primer on Apple's iPad - including an unlikely criticism.". With such a short introduction, Fletcher connected iPad with the politics in China and the Communist Party of China.
The logic of the article is obvious. It reminds people that the official newspaper of the CPC Central Committee is also concerned about the iPad, but it is more concerned that pirate products cannot be installed on iPad.
The WSJ has always been good at grasping "valuable news." In Fletcher's interpretation, my article gained a political meaning: although the government stressed the need to crack down on piracy, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party has published an article "showing sympathy to piracy" and complaining about not being pirate-friendly.
From the replies, we can see such deliberate misinterpretation has misled readers that have not read the full article. However, it also led to the dissatisfaction of readers that had read the article.
