Reporters at Clinton's press conference in China.
In case you haven't seen the quotes, here they are again. When it quoted Hillary Clinton on human rights, CNN excised her words from a longer quote that Reuters ran in full. CNN deployed the partial, stitched-together quote out of context to assert that the new U.S. Secretary of State cares more about economy, climate change, and security than she does about human rights.
CNN: "Human rights cannot interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises."
Reuters: "Now, that doesn't mean that questions of Taiwan, Tibet, human rights, the whole range of challenges that we often engage on with the Chinese, are not part of the agenda. But we pretty much know what they are going to say. We have to continue to press them but our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises. We have to have a dialog that leads to an understanding and cooperation on each of those."
When you read the quote in context, it becomes clear that Clinton was not saying, as CNN asserted, that "the world economic and other crises are more pressing and immediate priorities." Rather, she was saying, as Reuters put it, that "The United States will press China on human rights but this will not keep them from working together on the financial crisis, climate change and North Korea."
The difference in reporting is trivial only if you consider the economic and climate crises trivial, only if you think it's no big deal that North Korea has nuclear weapons. Because while it's crucial that Chinese and Tibetan people enjoy basic freedom and security, it's also crucial that we work with China on the economy, the environment, and peace. China holds $700 billion in U.S. Treasury bills—an amount almost as large as the economic stimulus package President Obama signed this month. Should we refuse to talk to them about the economy? Climate scientists believe China surpassed the U.S. as the world's leading producer of greenhouse gases in 2007 and that China's contribution to global warming is increasing ten times faster than ours. How can we stop China from roasting the planet if we refuse to talk to them about the environment?
We may be defining the phrase "human rights" too narrowly. When Clinton talks to the Chinese about the economy she's talking to the Chinese about human sustenance across the globe. When she talks to the Chinese about the environment and nuclear security, she's talking to them about human existence and the existence of many other species.
Unfortunately, when she talks about anything, some reporters feel free to take liberties with what she says. Like Tom Cruise, like Britney Spears, Hillary Clinton has achieved a version of celebrity that eclipses her right to have her statements reproduced faithfully, and in context, by the press. It also eclipses our right to have them delivered faithfully and in context. That's not the way the press should operate, but ever since Hillary Clinton said she's not going to stand by her man like a little woman in a Tammy Wynette song, ever since she made it clear she's not going to stay home and bake cookies, some reporters have listened to her words not for their meaning, but only for their temperature. And with Clinton heading the State Department, she won't be the only one shortchanged.
CNN's hatchet reporting makes for good headlines, strong page views, angry activists, and discussions that echo around the globe--but it makes it harder for us to save and create jobs, stop global warming, and live in peace.
News Analysis by Jeff McMahon
UPDATE: CNN has now edited the story to restore some of the words they omitted from the quotation. However, they haven't changed the distorted summary of the quote that serves as their lede paragraph. The CNN article is unsigned.
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Comments
China, the human right lover
* Contrary to popular belief, it is a fact.
30 years ago, many Chinese died of starvation, did not have a roof over their heads…
Not any more now.
Are these the basic human rights?
* Why you’re lied to.
The media wants to create controversy to sell their stuffs.
The politician wants to establish a common enemy, so you ignore more important problems that they cannot fix.
The offense companies have more reason to expand.
They all assume you are stupid and cannot analyze.
* Why US is human right violator.
How many we killed and how many Chinese killed abroad last year?
How many innocent people we have to kill in Iraq before we stop?
How many national guards are sent to the killing field against their will??
Should we destroy another country accusing them to have ‘mass destruction weapons’?
Why it is OK for us to own nuclear weapons that can destroy the entire world with a push of a button?
How many citizens die of obesity as we encourage “good” food?
How many poor remain to be poor for generations due to our generous welfare system?
How many our children are killed every year due to our lack of gun control law?
Gun control is not even an issue for both political parties.
How many teenage mothers we encourage starting from the top politicians?
How many Indians stay in their reservation forever and got drunk by not providing them with jobs?
How we use up the world’s oil and blame China who uses less than ¼ of ours per capita?
In addition, a good portion of China’s oil is used to manufacture our stuffs that we do not really need.
How we blame China for military expenditure while ours is 10 times theirs?
How we encourage our citizens to spend on credit and buy houses we cannot afford until the entire financial system collapses?
When special interest groups donate millions to politicians, how can they make unbiased decisions for us?
The list is endless.
China has its own problems and we have our own. Let each work on her problems and we’ll have a better world.
Your yardstick is good for your country but not mine, and China’s yardstick is comparing China 30 years ago. It is laughable to use the yardstick of a developed country (US) to measure a developing country (China), and vice versa. Depending on which yardstick you’re using, China could be a human right lover and US a violator – that could sound funny!
LOL, Yeah blame Palin, why not. She is an idiot!
RT
www.anonymity.eu.tc
Looks like CNN didn't distort anything, you just don't want to accept what was said. "those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises." "Those issues" refers directly to human rights, Tibet, Taiwan, etc.
She flat out said that human rights can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crises.
Pathetic! The WMT Board member Hillary DOESNT want to discuss human rights? Worse that you defend her
Thank you for all of your comments. Bonny, even if you defend CNN's surgery on the quote, you must admit that the full quote does not support their summary lede, which claims she said that economy, climate and security "ARE MORE PRESSING AND IMMEDIATE" than human rights. We can see from the full quote that she clearly does not say that. It's an implication that was exaggerated by the way they edited her quote, and then exaggerated further by their summary of the edited quote. In fact, she very carefully avoids ranking these issues.
Shorter or longer, she is basically saying the same thing.
I don't agree Ryan. Saying human rights is less important then the other issues is not the same as saying, "We have to have a dialog that leads to an understanding and cooperation on each of those."
Living example of the relationship of democracy and human rights practices in the lives of foreign expatriates in Saudi Arabia, Arabian Gulf:
One of the men work for 20 years in the company in Saudi Arabia, a son and a brief period since the accident, he decided immediately to conduct an operation in a hospital in Jeddah Bakhsh, and after the end of the operation of the man's son Sudanese nationality and is residing in Saudi Arabia shows that the cost of the surgery was 5,000 SR in addition
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