The BBC Has Lost Its Former Aura of an “Impartial” Media —a letter to the BBC China editor Carrie by Chen Zhen from China

The BBC Has Lost Its Former Aura of an “Impartial” Media —a letter to the BBC China editor Carrie by Chen Zhen from China

Hello, Ms. Carrie. I’m a faithful reader of the BBC Chinese websiteand also an ordinary Christian of the Church of Almighty God.After I read your articleA Report on the Spot: The Chinese Cult that Kills “Demons” (August 14)and watched a short video in which you personally did an interview,The Murder in Zhaoyuan, Shandong Province and the Cult (August 15),I felt awfully sorry and disappointedand was unspeakably sorrowful and indignant.

The Future of the Media Magnate BBC Is Worrying

• The Future of the Media Magnate BBC Is Worrying

  On August 14, the BBC Chinese website published an on-spot report entitled The Chinese Cult that Kills “Demons.”The article tacitly agrees that “the murder in Zhaoyuan, Shandong Province, China” is related to the “Church of Almighty God,” but also adds a tragedy of the family of a “victim,” Mr. Wang, implying that the Church of Almighty God is a cult that stops at no evil. This is undoubtedly the best assistance and support to the CCP government’s deed of cracking down on the underground churches.

  As we all know, since April the CCP has launched a political campaign of cracking down on the “cults” in Mainland China. They not only unilaterally fix a list of twenty “cults,” but also high-handedly suppress the religious people in Xinjiang and other places. And they even demolish the churches and crosses in places such as Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, arrest the ministers, seal off and expel the house churches, hunt and persecute the Christians….

  The BBC’s guideline says, “Trust is the foundation of the BBC: we are independent, impartial and honest.” In over 90 years, as the biggest public news organization in Britain which is subsidized by the government but operates independently, the BBC took part in reporting almost every important news event of Britain. For a long time, the BBC has been considered one of the most respected media in the world. However, what’s puzzling is that after Chinese netizens raise many strong doubts about “the case in Zhaoyuan, Shandong Province,” the BBC actually chooses to issue such an incorrect report at the crucial moment when the world pays high attention to the religious freedom of China. It’s really astonishing and pitiful! Why is the reporting style of a world-class media so similar to the contemptible CCTV? Why does the BBC with the noble identity of the “voice of Britain” sing the same tune with the CCP?

  The British government has been concerned about the human rights situation of China. However, to our disappointment, the BBC China editor Ms. Carrie simply stood on the CCP’s side in this report. Although it’s called “on-spot report,” it’s not objective or neutral and the content is partial and impetuous. She not only didn’t interview the Church of Almighty God but also hastily reached a conclusion and determined the nature of it. This way of doing makes people astonished at the BBC’s level of news reporting! We can’t help doubting: On the eve of the public trial of “the case in Zhaoyuan, Shandong Province,” what happened to the BBC, which asserts to “observe a strict neutrality and not to be disturbed by commerce”? How come it published such a report? To our doubt, why does the BBC, always having an insight to the affairs of the world and keeping the whole world in view, willingly act as the vanguard of rumoring and ballyhooing for the CCP? Why can’t it see clearly all at once what kind of party the CCP is? Why does it fail to see clearly all at once that the CCP is an expert at fabricating false news? Additionally, why can’t it see clearly the serious consequence of being hostile to the world, the mankind, and the history due to keeping company with the CCP?

  All people of insight in the world see that the CCP is the real evil party and cult. Think back to the over sixty years since the CCP was in power in modern history. Black clouds weigh the country heavily with slaughter and fights everywhere, and bloody atrocities prevail in each place, where wails can be heard and people live in misery. It is these heads of devils weaving the lie of “communism” that pour in the generations of Chinese people the potions of “atheism” and “loving the party and the country” and publicly put the evil party in the place of God. Such a group of devils, which go against Heaven and run counter to right principles, can only bring the Chinese people to hell and to everlasting perdition! China has been claiming that it allows the “freedom of belief.” However, the Church of Almighty God has always been the object the CCP, the evil party, attacks and condemns, and thousands of people are arrested, detained, and cruelly tortured and even to disability or death. In face of these bloody facts, why does the sophisticated BBC play a role that is “silly and naive”? Why does it become selectively “blind” all at once? Is there a benefit chain hidden behind it? What kind of trade is concealed? These are the factors people can’t avoid thinking of.

  As a Christian of the Church of Almighty God, I pay attention to the BBC and respect the BBC. So I hope that such an impartial media can be a model of resisting the vicious CCP and be a relatively impartial and true voice in the world. However, what the great majority of netizens worry about is that the public confidence level of the BBC has been declining over the decades. In 2012, due to the exposure of the sexual abuse scandal of its previous ace host and its incorrect coverage of a Parliament member’s child abuse case, the BBC’s CEO and news chief resigned successively, so that the BBC suffered the greatest crisis throughout its history. According to the analyses of various media, what the BBC that broadcasts the report of the facts lost most in this storm was the unrivaled public confidence that it once had owned.

  The journalist John Simpson said, “Reputations once lost are very hard indeed to regain. People forget the precise reasons why they no longer have faith in an organisation, but the whiff of untrustworthiness lingers for a very long time. The BBC must have a thoroughgoing reform, though it will be painful. Or we will never regain the high reputation we enjoyed around the world until just a few weeks ago.”

  Whenever the crisis of the public confidence comes out, it needs a long time effort to recover gradually. The incorrect report is one of maladies causing BBC’s many crises. The anger and disappointment of the public will surely turn into the paper money burnt on its funeral. It is the time BBC should have a deep examination. If the BBC doesn’t put an end to such a kind of report, its future is worrying! The chairman of the BBC Trust Chris Patten said, “Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul? Absolutely it does and that is what we will have to do.” I agree with Chairman Patten’s opinion and expect to see that BBC can again become the most respected media in the world through reformation.

  We’ll wait and see how the BBC is going to resolve this problem.

   ——by Xiao Xiao (from Guangdong Province, China)
• EasternLightning | TheChurch of Almighty God came into being because of the work of the returned Lord Jesus—the end-time Christ, “AlmightyGod”—in China, and it isn’t established by any person. Christ is the truth, the way, and the life. After reading God’s word, you will see that God has appeared.
  
  
  
  

The BBC Acts as the Vanguard of the CCP’s Suppressing the Underground Churches

The BBC Acts as the Vanguard of the CCP’s Suppressing the Underground Churches

I’m a Christian of the Church of Almighty God. Living under the dark ruling of the CCP government, I’m very miserable and depressed. I often climb over the wall to read various articles of the BBC. From the BBC’s previous working style, I saw a media demeanor of “being fair, impartial, realistic, and accurate” and saw that the BBC put its editorial value into work well, which is “we seek to establish the truth of what has happened, and we strive to be honest and are committed to achieving due accuracy in our reports.” I felt that the BBC was a trustworthy western media and a just organization that strived for the freedom and democracy for the vulnerable groups.

The BBC Has Lost Its Former Aura of an “Impartial” Media

• The BBC Has Lost Its Former Aura of an “Impartial” Media

  For many years, in the hearts of the people of all countries, the BBC, for taking not fearing power, upholding impartiality, reporting the truth of the fact objectively, respecting religious belief, and so on, as its aim, is judged one of the media most respected worldwide. But on August 14, 2014, a report in the BBC Chinese website greatly disappoints many net friends who deeply trust the BBC. Particularly, some parts in this article that are not objective make the sensible net friends begin to red light the trust towards the BBC.

  As the Christians of the Church of Almighty God, we are shocked by this report of the BBC even more greatly. Next let’s look at the problems in this report together.

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  I. The title of this article is “A Report on the Spot: The Chinese Cult that Kills ‘Demons.’” Before writing this article, has the author Carrie really made an on-the-spot investigation in the Church of Almighty God? If not, how much can this article be trusted? We believers in God mainly strive to have our life disposition transformed through reading Almighty God’s word and understanding the truth. God requires us to have conscience and sense in our living out, to be forbearing, patient, and tolerant, and so on, and in the end to live out the likeness of a real man. Whether others are “demons” or not is not the subject of our life entering in and it has nothing to do with us. So, with us there is not such an absurd saying of “killing demons.” But the two men mentioned in the article both say that
  the believers in Almighty God are “killing demons.” This runs counter to God’s teaching to us. I would like to ask the author these questions: When you published this article, have you learned the purpose of our believing in God in the Church of Almighty God? Have you ever contacted the Christians of the Church of Almighty God? Have you made a practical research about what Zhang Lidong and Wang Jiannan said? If your answers to all these questions are “no,” is it suitable for you to use “a report on the spot” in the article? Such an act of the BBC has not only gone against the tenet of being objective and impartial in managing its media, which it had always upheld, but it is a very irresponsible act to the public.

  II. In this report, except for Zhang Lidong known to all, who is the leading role in the “5/28 Zhaoyuan Incident,” through which the CCP wantonly defames and frames the Church of Almighty God, there appears another so-called victim named Wang Jiannan who gives some “evidence.” Yet those who are careful will find that in the report, only Wang Jiannan himself speaks from beginning to end, without any concrete evidence at all. In the report, Wang firmly says that his sister and mother are members of the Church of Almighty God. According to the independent reporting style of the BBC, why hasn’t it gone to check with Wang’s sister since she is in prison? Besides, he says that they have believed for about 20 years; yet she killed her father on the excuse of “killing a demon.” This is completely contrary to the word of Almighty God. Then their identities are suspect. So, only with a picture of a man’s mourning for the dead before a grave, it plants all the problems on the Church of Almighty God. Is this convincing? According to the author’s reasoning, shouldn’t it be concluded that the suffering of all those who mourn before graves is caused by the “killing demons” of the Church of Almighty God? Is such evidence tenable? The BBC says in its tenet of “trust”: “Trust is the foundation of the BBC: We are independent, impartial and honest. We are committed to achieving the highest standards of due accuracy and impartiality and strive to avoid knowingly or materially misleading our audiences.” Then is the BBC’s deed keeping the promise of striving to achieve accuracy in reporting? Or is it upholding its tenet of not misleading its audiences?

  III. We are perplexed about the two video screenshots quoted in the article. We all know that to learn about the content of an article or a film, we should at least read this article or watch this film, and then we can give our opinions. However, in this report, it only selects and quotes two screenshots from the two films of the Church of Almighty God, and it adds its own opinions and comments about them without respecting the original purposes of the authors and the Church of Almighty God to make these two films. Moreover, it misleads people onto a pathway contrary to the original intentions of the film makers. Such misleading doesn’t respect the fact, much less care about the public feelings. The BBC says in its tenet of “Serving the Public Interests”: “We seek to report stories of significance to our audiences. We will be rigorous in establishing the truth of the story and well informed when explaining it.” This report of the BBC not only hasn’t served the public interests or reported the fact, but on the contrary it has brought loss to the public interests: Before watching the films, they have been infused with a wrong viewpoint. Isn’t this thoughtless and improper? Besides, as to whether the viewpoints in the article are accordant with the facts, the public can draw a conclusion only after making an investigation themselves. If the BBC really upholds the tenet of “transparency” it claims, shouldn’t it publish the links of these two films on the Internet and let the public judge them themselves, only which can be said to be transparent?

  Many people in the world know that the CCP government cruelly maltreats dissidents: In the world-shocking “6/4 Incident” in 1989, the CCP used tanks and machine guns to suppress the defenseless students who sat in the Tiananmen Square petitioning for democracy; in the Tibet issue, in order to maintain its dictatorship the CCP created false cases and slaughtered the Tibetan people bloodily, and all at once the blood flowed like rivers in the Tibet. Now, in China so many people have no way to live because their houses are forcibly torn down by the CCP, and when they petition with grievances, they are arrested and put in prison and secretly killed; and so many believers in Almighty God are imprisoned illegally by the CCP and are maimed or killed; … As a western mainstream media, you should see that not only the people in the whole Mainland China are disclosing the CCP, but the people of various countries and the media in the West have all seen the cruelty of the CCP’s fighting the dissidents and especially persecuting the religion. It’s no wonder that the western democratic countries call China a country in the axis of evil. Under the ruling of the CCP, the Chinese people have no human rights at all. As for such an evil party, haven’t you, the BBC, seen it through? An agency who bears the glory and image of Britain and its people actually turns into the CCP’s mouthpiece and speaks for it at such a time. We are greatly shocked by it! BBC, what qualification do you have to stand as a star in the ranks of impartial media of the world?

  Why does the BBC, even in a matter that everyone with a discerning eye can see through, go against its aim of managing the media and speak against the fact? Is it motivated by money or forced by power? Is the BBC a media or a ruling party? In June this year, Li Keqiang, the Chinese premier, paid a sudden visit to Britain and signed commercial contracts with Britain worth 14 billion pounds. This makes it very natural for people to link that with this BBC report. The BBC, a media widely recognized by the world and deeply respected by its fellows, actually discards the dignity of speaking the truth for the sake of money and interests, which is really incredible! We can only say this with sadness: BBC, you have lost your former aura of an “impartial” media.

  EasternLightning | TheChurch of Almighty God came into being because of the work of the returned Lord Jesus—the end-time Christ, “AlmightyGod”—in China, and it isn’t established by any person. Christ is the truth, the way, and the life. After reading God’s word, you will see that God has appeared.