Coverage of recent Tibetan riots in western media has triggered huge resentment among Chinese communities abroad, who accuse the West for media bias. An independent website (http://www.anti-cnn.com) was set up to “expose the lies and distorted facts in the western media”. CNN has been exposed under cross-fire together with some other big names like BBC, Times, Fox, and a vast number of German media Spiegel, NTV, RTL etc. The website also started an English-language online forum (http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en) 4 days ago on March 31st, which now has 1209 posts in total and a boosting number of members rush in almost every single minute.

Under the prompting slogan “We Just Want the Truth, CNN: the world’s leader of liars”, the website scrutinizes how western media like CNN have treated the riot unfairly, mainly out of two concerns:

–         Misuse of pictures and videos. Most materials used to illustrate Chinese military force in Tibet were proved to be taken in Nepal or India where some other protests took place. But all captions pointed to Chinese military violence against Tibetan protesters in Lhasa.

–         Imbalanced source. Most media only quote pro-Dalai Lama voices, saying the unrest was “Buddhist peaceful protest” and “Beijing used military violence against protesters”. The website has collected vast evidence from video clips to blogs written by western travelers who eye-witnessed the riots, to show that the protest was nothing peaceful but violence, and the death toll was mainly composed of Chinese people (instead of Tibetan protesters as Tibetan government in exile has claimed).

Very likely due to the influence of this website, protests against western media bias burst out in at least 8 countries including Canada, Germany, Australia and Sweden, self-organized by local Chinese students and immigrants.

A few media responded to such movements. German RTL apologized for being bias and misusing some of the pictures. BBC Beijing correspondent admitted “too much emphasis on Tibet side instead of a voice balance”. CNN also posts a self-defending statement (http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/03/28/tibet.statement/index.html#cnnSTCText). But anti-cnn.com seems not satisfied with this and posted a “statement on CNN’s statement” (http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/en/thread-50-1-1.html) written by a Chinese student studying in Munich, Germany.