Seeing the truth needs an open mind

It is the saddest thing for a news organization to lose its objectivity and choose to publish or broadcast only the negative side of a particular country or even tarnish it with lies.

What Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) has done in recent years indicates that it is going in that direction.

In 2008, Zhang Danhong, who was deputy editorial director of China-Redaktion der Deutsche Welle, criticized Germany's policy toward China and called for more balanced reporting about China. But she was sidelined after the incident.

Now four more overseas Chinese staff members working for China-Redaktion der Deutsche Welle have been denied the opportunity to renew their contract with Deutsche Welle for what they claim are political reasons. They have published an open letter, asking the company to rescind its decision, and expressed their view that China-Redaktion der Deutsche Welle has lost its credibility by adhering to biased reporting against China.

I don't know whether the four DW TV Station editors were denied the opportunity to extend their labor contract with DW for the reasons they have claimed. But the China-Redaktion der Deutsche Welle has certainly given the impression that its reporting of China in recent years has been ideologically oriented, instead of following the principles of journalism.

While it is not appropriate to call for Western media to demonstrate a pro-China stance, it is appropriate to say they need to be as balanced and objective as they claim to be. Some of them need to relinquish their Cold War mentality and look at China not as an enemy but as a sovereign nation.

For example, on the question of the Tibet autonomous region, Western media, such as Deutsche Welle, should never report Tibet to be an independent country as it is indisputably an inalienable part of China.

Behind the anti-China biased reporting in the Western media is the broader fear that China poses a threat to the West. With that preconception, some Western media believe that they need to undermine China and seek to bring about the collapse of this socialist country.

With such an agenda, such principles as the obligation to the truth, verification of facts, and balanced reporting are ignored.

As a result, their reports about China sometimes turn out to be absurd. In the reporting of the riot in Tibet in March 2008, it was the rioters or thugs who killed innocent people, yet in the reports by some Western media, that truth was turned upside down and Chinese armed police officers who saved people's lives were reported as the murderers.

Those Western journalists should come to China to see in person what this country has achieved and how the living standards of its people have improved.

The Western media needs to learn that China is not what it used to be, and neither is the world.

Chinese leaders have reiterated on many different occasions that this country will pursue a road of peaceful development and they mean what they have said. China is not a threat to the West now and nor will it be in the future.

The West should stop looking at this country with a distorted view so we can all build a harmonious world.

The author is a senior writer of China Daily.