Media confuse issue

Perhaps the most important story of summer 1989 was the massacre of student demonstrators in Beijing, China. As a story it is most instructive in how the U.S. media consistently misleads public opinion. The same corporate press that effusively praised Chinese Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping for his pragmatism in moving China into capitalist-style economic organization turned right around and started denouncing "hard-liners" and "conservatives," who only weeks before were described as "reformers" and "pragmatists." It is the nature of the corporate media that its use of blitz style publicity, photos and headlines and repeated cliches makes it easy to have historical amnesia.

Time magazine had named Deng Xiaoping Man of the Year twice in congratulatory tones. Blatant capitalist propaganda sang the praises of Deng Xiaoping. Named "Success Story of the Year for 1985" by Success magazine editor- in-chief Scott DeGarmo, Deng Xiaoping was said to make "a Horatio Alger hero look like a piker."