From an anonymous Western correspondent: "This precisely what is wrong with American international news reporting. The NYT in this case quotes this Xinhua editorial, calls it "embellishment" and then immediately debunks it with a quote from a former official allowing him to call it "blather".. except that if you break it down, every thing this Chinese editorial is saying in this paragraph is the absolute factual truth. Has there not been U.S. rendition and torture? Doesn't the U.S. admit that its drones kill civilians and didn't the Brazilian president at the U.N. General Assembly have a thing or two to say about being spied on? But would the NYT or any American newspaper be able or willing to just acknowledge that? NO. That is the fatal flaw in American journalism when reporting on the world: it cannot see U.S. behavior in the world objectively. Without that there is no true international reporting. If a newspaper cannot empty itself of its own national biases--and this goes for any nation--it cannot report on the world objectively.
FROM THE NYT: "In its commentary, Xinhua embellished its call for a new reserve currency with a scathing indictment of the United States’ broader role in the world, saying that the Obama administration claimed “the moral high ground” while covertly “torturing prisoners of war, slaying civilians in drone attacks and spying on world leaders.”
Edwin M. Truman, an economist and former Treasury Department official, said: “This is political blather. It is a politically defensive response to the choices China has made.”
