German magazine report against ethics

German magazine Der Spiegel’s online edition on Jan 31 had a provocative cover story headlined “Coronavirus: Made in China”. The subtitle went on to say “When globalization becomes a deadly threat”, in an obvious attempt to underplay China’s efforts to fight the novel coronavirus.

A day later, the website of the Chinese embassy in Germany and its Twitter account made clear its stand on the headlines. It said China was going all out to combat the epidemic and prevent its spread and that the German magazine’s sensational headlines went against journalistic ethics.

Der Spiegel’s cover story won it handsome rewards: huge amounts of views and 700 comments on Facebook. But most of the comments expressed disgust at the headlines. At a time when the Chinese people are fully mobilized to fight the epidemic and arrest its spread, Der Spiegel is by no means representative of the large number of netizens who have a basic sense of justice and a correct perception of the world.

Der Spiegel carries such provocative reports whenever a major disaster befalls China. But it is not the only German media organization that goes to any lengths to distort facts about China. Die Zeit has done worse. An article the magazine carried on Jan 29 denounced the epidemic in China as a “political virus”. People wearing masks and cases of some villagers blocking roads to protect themselves from the virus were portrayed as “collective unconsciousness” and the unified distribution of relief materials in China as a sign of “tyranny”.

Some German media organizations like to look at the so-called lack of transparency and democracy in China’s relief system through a magnifying glass, but turn a blind eye to the greater efforts made by China than even the United States and other developed countries, to fight flu and other epidemics over the past few years.