CNN China bureau chief: disagree without being disagreeable

• Source: Global Times
• [13:21 June 18 2009]
• Comments

Living and working here for 38 years, FlorCruz said he felt privileged to cover China during an important period in the history. But the resentment aroused among many Chinese people last March really brought a lot of trouble to the bureau chief in China.

FlorCruz tried hard to explain that CNN wasn’t doing what netizens accused the network of doing -- of “demonizing China”. By quoting a saying from Confucius, FlorCruz said saying something critical can be well meaning, while saying good things may do harm.

“Confucius said there are three friends that do good and three friends that do harm. The friends that do good are straight friends, the sincere friends, and a friend who has heard much. The friends that do harm are the smooth friends, the falling friends and a friend with a glib tongue.”

Describing China as a big country with a huge population, FlorCruz said it’s hard for anyone or any media to draw a whole picture of China. What a news story could reflect is just one piece of the whole mosaic that represents the country with the world’s largest population. 

In order to calm the anger ignited by CNN’s commentator Jack Cafferty, who blasted Chinese people as “goons and thugs”, and Chinese-made goods as “junk”, FlorCruz said in the Global Times interview that Cafferty didn’t represent CNN, and the commentary is totally different to news reporting, which needs to be accurate and reliable.

“In many other countries, there are many commentators who can criticize US presidents and politicians and make fun of them even,” he said.

“So I hope that the Chinese audience who reads them or hears them will realize that a commentator’s voice represents basically that person,” FlorCruz explained.

“What we can do is to try our best to facilitate,” he continues. “At the same time we try to get rid of prejudice and bias towards each other.”

Treating China as his second home, FlorCruz said he couldn’t say anything more about his feelings towards China, and he hopes whatever happened last year would not affect his genuine friendship with China.

“I hope we can disagree  without being disagreeable,” said FlorCruz hoping it could help calm the waters.