I... don't see the rebuttal. There is no demonstration on inaccuracies in the original reporting, just a bunch of complaining about bias.

Biased reporting that selectively misrepresents Chinese perspectives and in this case, deliberate omissions to dismiss the publication as purveyor of fake news is crux to many Chinese complaints against western MSM. See all the Huawei 5G hit pieces from a nominally free 5th estate that somehow manages to replicate the manufactured consent of state propaganda. IMO people who lived under propaganda, especially journalists, editors or other media professionals are also equipped to identify it.

>The editor claimed that during their talks, he explained to Zhang how much effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references. But none of these went into the final piece.

> “In the profile, there is no mention of all the insight, knowledge, experience, and stories that I shared with her about the new-media industry. Instead, it made up some lies and criticized Chinese publications like ours for producing fake news.

> Biased reporting that selectively misrepresents Chinese perspectives and in this case, deliberate omissions

Was there bias in the reporting? sure. Is there bias against China in the MSM? sure.

That isn't a rebuttal.

> >The editor claimed that during their talks, he explained to Zhang how much effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references. But none of these went into the final piece.

This is the same editor who the article quotes as admitting to complete fabricating a story? If there is so much good information about "effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references", why did none of those details make it into the rebuttal?

> Instead, it made up some lies

What lies? If there were lies, they should be specifically identified.

I was careless to label the response as a rebuttal. The merit and significance of the response for me was the contextualizing of the original New Yorker piece under a pattern of western MSM bias designed designed to undermine and dismiss Chinese perspectives. College Daily is the equivalent of Buzzfeed / Gawker. They don't do good reporting, I'm aware of the controversies surrounding the brand. But to portray it as some primary source of information for Chinese student diaspora while dog whistling the publication as Chinese Breitbart instead of calling it a sensationalist clickbait shitrag where _some_ Chinese kids get their culture war bonerings is disingenuous. The fact that there are many Chinese voices that dissent to the standards of the publication on Chinese social media should indicate that there is understanding of the nature of the publication and the niche that it serves. Titling the article: "The “Post-Truth” Publication Where Chinese Students in America Get Their News" is the kind of headline one would engineer to dismiss Chinese perspectives given the timing of the article to recent Chinese political activations in western societies.

I frankly see less wrong with that headline than I see wrong with most headlines today. The term "Post-Truth" as an accurate descriptor of College Daily seems to have come directly from Lin:

> Pressed to articulate the identity of his publication, Lin used the phrase “post-truth,” which he attributed to the New York Times, to express his belief that the true essence of things is fundamentally unknowable and that the meaning of the news of the day depends on the spin one chooses to put on it.

EDIT: The article itself also makes a point of including Chinese with perspectives on College Daily.

When pressed, after other employees labeled the publication as "new media" and "news agency". There are several passages that characterize Lin as annoyed, irritated, angry etc with the interview process to the point of claiming “Can’t I just tell you that I was being a fucking idiot?”. Decontextualizing the nature of the interview and soundbite into a headline is not responsible journalism IMO, especially when it is well understood that a around half of most readers typically only consume headlines. Hence the response article labeling the original piece as a trap.

As for the balancing Chinese perspective, it was one paragraph of people who are disturbed that the publication is "synonymous with government propaganda" and a more detailed examination of one named individual who is apathetic towards the role of journalism to further support the narrative that Chinese students are "melon-eating masses". These accounts hardly encapsulates the amount of distaste among the Chinese diaspora for the publication, who regularly shits on the journal for being a clickfarm the same way many called out Buzzfeed or Gawker in the west, tacitly endorsing the generic Chinese as a monolith trope. There are plenty of Chinese students / general diaspora members who are high-information consumers that have a rational basis to support (and not support) the CPC whose world view is informed by both Chinese and Western sources and experiences. And unsurprisingly there is a conspicuous lack acknowledgement of their existence in western MSM, which is a shame because their perspective is worth understanding.

Anecdotally, there's many highly educated Romanian and Chinese immigrants up in Canada that escaped repressive conditions of the old country. You won't find many Romanian nationalists in the diaspora, and very few who returned. Not so with China. It's worth understanding why and I surmise the answer is more nuanced than these folks are brainwashed.

> Decontextualizing the nature of the interview and soundbite into a headline is not responsible journalism IMO

No, not particularly. However, having read both the contents and the piece the and summary of the "rebuttal", I find the headline sufficiently accurate. If find the headline more accurate that your attempt to characterize it as "the kind of headline one would engineer to dismiss Chinese perspectives"

>as for the balancing Chinese perspective, it was one paragraph of people who are disturbed that the publication is "synonymous with government propaganda" and a more detailed examination of one named individual who is apathetic towards the role of journalism to further support the narrative that Chinese students are "melon-eating masses".

I count 11+ paragraphs that detail the opinions of 3 different Chinese individuals (Xiao, Fang and Huang) and they are not presented as monolithic.

Both Fang "a communications professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong" and Xiao who "teaches at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information and runs a bilingual Web site called China Digital Times" (a great resource) are commenting on general issues regarding Chinese journalism / media propaganda apparatus doesn't meaningfully elucidate divergent perspectives of netizens on College Daily. The article doesn't deviate from generic all Chinese media is state controlled narrative which while true omits the fact that Chinese student diaspora doesn't exclusive derive information from Chinese sources or even trust Chinese sources, specifically in reference to College Daily which I've seen even die-hard /r/sino tankies dismiss. Instead condescendingly portraying Chinese media readers as "conditioned" to propaganda, "dissociated from truth", "one of the melon-eating masses", "passive onlooker with neither the means nor the interest to know what’s truly going on", deserving of "sympathy" because they're not even deplorable enough like western fringe opinion holders who had the freedom to form their own worldview. A brainwashed monolith.

The headline is accurate in the sense that's it's not factually wrong, but that's the nature of propaganda via omission. Repeat such pattern over many articles and it gives credence to the "rebuttal" that identifies the piece as one of many designed to "orchestrate a defamatory campaign" against China and in particular increasing politically active Chinese students in context of current political climate. I'm going to end my contributions here, but thank you for the discussion.

Calling something propaganda by omission is still not a rebuttal, especially when that rebuttal also fails to provide any of the supposedly "omitted" facts.

You can't just ignore things you disagree with because they are biased.

You are their target audience then.

>how much effort the publication put into fact-checking and confirming references.

Looks like you can read Chinese, so tell me if they do what say, why are there so many allegations of fabrication and plagiarism against this "self-media" on Chinese social media?

EDITED.