Media top headlines January 25
In media news today, Peter Doocy says Biden called his cellphone to ‘clear the air,’ Whoopi Goldberg goes off on Bill Maher for his pandemic comments, and Sarah Palin tests positive for COVID delaying her defamation case against the New York Times.
The New York Times raised eyebrows with a report critics say offers over-the-top praise for China and its leader ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
On Saturday, Times Beijing bureau chief Steven Lee Myers, Shanghai bureau chief Keith Bradsher and global sports reporter Tariq Panja co-authored an article titled "China’s Games: How Xi Jinping Is Staging the Olympics on His Terms," bolstering how China "managed to fulfill its promises and cow its critics."
The report began with Chinese President Xi Jinping's heavy push seven years ago for the International Olympic Committee to select Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games despite China's limited snowfall and lack of experience in winter sports.
"Mr. Xi pledged to resolve all of this, putting his personal prestige on what seemed then like an audacious bid. ‘We will deliver every promise we made,’ he told the Olympic delegates meeting in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur," the Times wrote. "With the Games only days away, China has delivered. It has plowed through the obstacles that once made Beijing’s bid seem a long shot, and faced down new ones, including an unending pandemic and mounting international concern over its authoritarian behavior."
FILE PHOTO: Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks at a meeting commemorating the 110th anniversary of Xinhai Revolution at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China October 9, 2021. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo
"China no longer needs to prove its standing on the world stage; instead, it wants to proclaim the sweeping vision of a more prosperous, more confident nation under Mr. Xi, the country's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. Where the government once sought to mollify its critics to make the Games a success, today it defies them," the Times later wrote. "Mr. Xi’s government has brushed off criticism from human rights activists and world leaders as the bias of those — including President Biden — who would keep China down. It has implicitly warned Olympic broadcasters and sponsors not to bend to calls for protests or boycotts over the country’s political crackdown in Hong Kong or its campaign of repression in Xinjiang, the largely Muslim region in the northwest."
The article highlighted how China "overruled the I.O.C. in negotiations" over COVID precautions that go far beyond Tokyo's Summer Olympics held last year "regardless of the cost to its economy and its people."
"Very few people today harbor illusions, unlike in 2008, that the privilege of hosting the event will moderate the country’s authoritarian policies. China then sought to meet the world’s terms. Now the world must accept China’s," the Times wrote. "The I.O.C., like international corporations and entire countries, has become so dependent on China and its huge market that few can, or dare to, speak up against the direction Mr. Xi is taking the country."
Protesters hold protest posters during a protest against Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics by activists of the Tibetan Youth Association in Europe front of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021. (Jean-Guy Python/Keystone via AP)
The Times went on to hype Xi for allegedly keeping his promises, writing how "the toxic air that once choked Beijing has largely, if not entirely, given way to blue skies" and "High-speed railways have slashed the trip from Beijing to the most distant venues from four hours to one." It also detailed the elaborate changes China made over the years to seize the Winter Games in 2022.
"If the coronavirus can be kept under control, Beijing could weather the Olympics with fewer problems than seemed likely when it won the rights to the Games seven years ago. Mr. Xi’s government has already effectively declared it a success. A dozen other Chinese cities are already angling for the 2036 Summer Olympics… ‘The world looks forward to China,’ Mr. Xi said in [a] New Year’s address, ‘and China is ready,’" the Times ended its report.
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The New York Times World shared the article on Twitter, summarizing "As Beijing prepares to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, it has changed a lot since it held the 2008 Summer Games. Instead of mollifying its critics, China defies them. But China has also expanded its economy and cleaned up air pollution."
Critics bashed the Times for heaping praise for one of the world's most prominent authoritarian human rights abusers.
"man this tweet sucks," Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy reacted.
"Propaganda," The Spectator contributing editor Stephen Miller declared on Saturday, adding "NY Times on China - 'suck it, H8ers."
"Did the Chinese Communist Party write this," Daily Beast senior opinion editor Anthony Fisher wondered. "The Nazis hosting the Olympics in 1936 was unspeakably bad, but China's committing a genocide *right now.* And that's not even getting into the whole pandemic thing, and how the CCP has done everything possible to obfuscate global investigations into Covid's origins."
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"Hey @nytimes in addition to expanding their economy you forgot China also expanded internment camps, forced sterilization programs, their surveillance state, genocide, and pretty much just terrible things in general. Great reporting," Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas., slammed the paper.
"What? The CCP poisoned the world. And denies it. While crushing Hong Kong and pursuing genocide. 'Changed a lot?' Sheesh," radio host Hugh Hewitt tweeted.
The Times did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
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