Misinformation example: BBC’s Stephen McDonell and the Zhuhai incident

One of the purposes of Media Without Means is to provide you with examples of misinformation, disinformation, and intentional lies presented in mainstream media to an audience that is not accustomed to questioning narratives.

Today, I want to draw your attention to BBC’s Stephen McDonell and his coverage of the Zhuhai tragedy a few days ago. The first and most obvious question to ask ourselves is this: How does he know “they are obviously being organized by the party…”? It is total speculation and ill-intended messaging from McDonell. There is absolutely nothing to indicate that the man is in any way affiliated with the CPC.

McDonell asks repeatedly: Who are you? To which the man replies: “I’m a Chinese person.”

Jerry Grey—a friend of Media Without Means, whose full video on this matter you can find in the link below—poses a series of interesting questions: Chief among them is this: how come the BBC appears to be the ONLY media outlet covering that event that night, particularly when the International Airshow in Zhuhai, which attracts hundreds of international media outlets, was about to start the next day? That is odd.

Investigations into the perpetrator’s days prior to the attack are already underway. Chinese intelligence is surely inquiring about the sources of funding for the vehicle that was purchased and reinforced to cause as much carnage as possible, as well as looking into any kind of collusion with foreign forces that may have ended up giving the BBC and McDonell’s team—which includes Edward Lawrence—a heads up that other media teams did not get.

Another distressing piece of information was picked up by Andy Boreham from Shanghai Daily. He noticed Edward Lawrence’s voice of encouragement for McDonell as he enjoyed capturing the moment. McDonell and Lawrence were there seeking exactly this kind of confrontation.

Consider this: Had McDonell tried to interview the man, tried to figure out how he felt about the situation, or whether he had lost a loved one during the incident, he would have walked away with valuable reporting from the ground. But that was not the objective.

The objective was to stir trouble and upset a grieving community, which would allow the BBC and McDonell to paint China as authoritarian and trying to hide the reporting.

The fact is, the incident was fully covered by local media, as seen here. The fact is, McDonell and Lawrence walked away from the scene without being arrested or having their cameras and memory cards confiscated. Had it been an authoritarian regime, neither would have been possible.