Yes, the pollution is sh*t. Yes, we've had a rough couple of weeks, including our current foray into the second ever red alert. But the sheer audacity of the international media and their lies is baffling, nonetheless.
Last year, the media abroad, particularly The Daily Mail, ran a story about an LED banner displaying a sunrise on Tian'anmen Square. The media claimed this was the government giving Beijing-residents a fake sunrise during a time when AQI levels were so high that the sun was hidden from view.
It turned out in the end that this was merely a travel advertisement, and that the journalists had not done their research, as debunked by Tech in Asia.
During the last airpocalypse, there were also a fair amount of bogus and simply sensationalist stories doing the rounds while we were smothered in grey.
First, the story of air being bought and sold in bottles resurfaced. Various media outlets including Vice and the Telegraph ran that story this time around. Vice's was titled "Beijing's Air Is So Bad, the Sale of Bottled Canadian Mountain Air Is Soaring". Realistically though, the average Beijinger, both foreign and local, does not buy air in bottles. We tend to buy air purifiers and air masks.
Then, we have the Independent, which reported that a Beijing restaurant was now charging for air purifiers. Upon reading the article, it turns out that the restaurant in question is located in Jiangsu province: really, really far from Beijing.
"The pollution in China is so bad, a restaurant started putting a surcharge on top of customers’ food bills as an “air cleaning fee.'
A restaurant in Zhangjiagang city, in the Jiangsu Province , recently purchased 'air filtration machines' following reports of dangerously high pollution levels in the country."
No F&B establishment in Beijing has been known to charge for their air purifiers, in fact, most local restaurants are not even equipped as the technology is expensive.
There was also our own debunking of The Economist's regurgitation of Berkeley Earth's misinformed conclusion that a day breathing in Beijing is equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes. Well, you can read how that went here.
None of this mentions that other international cities, namely New Delhi, consistently experience worse air pollution than Beijing, and yet receive only a fraction of the coverage. Don't these news outlets have bureaus in New Delhi? Do their correspondents not look out the window or walk outside?
There'll undoubtedly be a huge outpouring of other poorly-researched articles with this current round of pollution. All we can ask and hope is that the international media starts reporting the facts a little more responsibly.
More stories by this author here.
Email: margauxschreurs@truerun.com
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Nowhere in the entire article is there a mention of the air not being bad. Where are you getting this? In fact the first few lines read:
"Yes, the pollution is sh*t. Yes, we've had a rough couple of weeks, including our current foray into the second ever red alert. But the sheer audacity of the international media and their lies is baffling, nonetheless."
If you need me to replace the *: Yes, the pollution is shit. Please learn to read before commenting.
I just realized the writer had to be facetious . The air is 500+ in Beijing and you're trying to say it's not that bad? Maybe the bad air has gotten to people's brains. Where I'm sitting it's only 35. While I was back in Beijing for a few weeks to take care of some things , many days were over 200. If think that's good I feel sorry for you all.
Also, and so help me god I'm going to put an end to this before I die or just blow up the entire fucking planet and watch you all burn: There is no such thing as the International Media. This isn't a thing. It's not a place. They don't have a phone number. They don't have meetings. And, when one complains about how the International media (or Western media if you're Chinese and have literally any axe to grind), I find this unseemly. Most reporting on the smog has been factual, terse, and to-the-point. Yes, both VICE and the Telegraph reported the same thing, but this sort of leaves out the fact that they are entirely different entities with different styles and reputations (neither very good). And, the Daily Mail got something wrong? Really? This is what bothers you about the Daily Mail? Not the fact that, it, proof if there ever was that there is no god, exists at all. By putting this in the same category as, say, Reuters or AP, it debases the very concept of reading.
Reg the New Delhi pollution, author obviously had no clue.The smog in Delhi is not to to heavy dust due to the huge Metro project happening thru out the city at the same time.
Which is very different from the Industrial and vehicle pollution in Beijing.
Delhi also has laws regarding pollution check of all vehicles, has ALL public transport only running on CNG (Natural Gas) and has many govt controlled "green belt" areas to fight pollution.
Links: http://www.product-life.org/en/archive/cng-delhi http://m.theage.com.au/comment/delhis-metro-success-a-lesson-for-australia-20130401-2h2w8.html
Try some real journalism, not school projects.
Delhi is still in the denial stage.... Delhi's own records and the WHO agree:
Delhi’s air pollution is worse than Beijing’s
Maybe you'd also like to hear from Greenpeace on the issue:
Indian Coal Power Plant Pollution Standards 4 to 20 Times Worse Than Those In China
India may have the worst air in human history, I don't see how that is relevant when talking about the crap air in Beijing. That is like saying OJ is not guilty because John Wane Gascy killed a lot more people.
Agreed in the bigger picture
However, your analogy as it relates to the Delhi vs Beijing debate is slightly incorrect: you should be saying something to the effect of "OJ should be more reviled because he killed more people than John Wayne Gacy."
Curious, what do you mean by India's pollution being localized?
In regards to the debasement of reading, that's what makes the endless re-reporting of misleading headlines so frustrating. Let's face it, reading *is* debased, precisely because people are way too busy refreshing their Facebook and WeChat streams to actually read anything but headlines. That's what makes these stories that proclaim "Beijing Restaurant Charges Air Surcharge" or "Beijing's Air is So Bad, People Are Buying Canned Air" so frustrating ... as 99% of the "reading" public read only the headlines. This is not news of course (print media has always dealt with this problem) but as the volume of information has reached the point where its impossible to finish reading anything on any subject, the problem has gotten much worse.
I point out Delhi only because the previous poster insisted the air is worse in Beijing, when objective data clearly demonstrates it is not.
Your premise appears to be that if foreign media blows things out of proportion, it results in Chinese government action.
I don't subscribe to this theory. In fact I think the more exaggerated the reports are, the more defensive the government gets, and the more they deny the reality and pin it on some foreign conspiracy theory to discredit China.
What's needed is straightfoward reporting and fact disclosure on all sides.
![New Study Links Air Pollution to Beijing's "Silent" Miscarriages](https://www.thebeijinger.com/sites/default/files/styles/blog_list_image/public/thebeijinger/blog-images/313215/pollution_1.jpg "New Study Links Air Pollution to Beijing's "Silent" Miscarriages")
