Or, you know, this story was somehow made up to drum up the book release.
I may sound cynical, but I think it’s fair to remain skeptical.
The comment I’m replying to, for example, gives for granted that what this person is saying is true, just because it paints China in the bad light we would expect. Even if it make China's secret services look way stupider and inane than they actually are. That's a risky understatement.
Yet NPR fails to tell us how they verified the source’s claims. Have they listened to recordings of the call? Have they had some sort of proof?
There is no line that says they’ve independently checked the claims. Or did I miss that somehow?
When the topic is China we definitely end up accepting very low journalistic standards of verification that we would never accept for other topics. This is due to the mostly justified bias we might have in the West against China, but there's no why this bias is useful in understanding the geopolitics of the USA vs China scenario properly.
As a journalist is clear to me how the process behind such a piece goes: we haven't verified anything, but we're making the person speak directly, so if they're just making shit up, well, you know, it's just them that said false things on air, not us.
Yet NPR fails to tell us how they verified the source’s claims. Have they listened to recordings of the call? Have they had some sort of proof? There is no line that says they’ve independently checked the claims. Or did I miss that somehow?
When the topic is China we definitely end up accepting very low journalistic standards of verification that we would never accept for other topics. This is due to the mostly justified bias we might have in the West against China, but there's no why this bias is useful in understanding the geopolitics of the USA vs China scenario properly.
As a journalist is clear to me how the process behind such a piece goes: we haven't verified anything, but we're making the person speak directly, so if they're just making shit up, well, you know, it's just them that said false things on air, not us.