Chen Guangcheng

Yesterday I noted how two Washington Post reporters, Andrew Higgins and Keith Richburg, studiously refused to tag Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng as a "human rights activist." Curious about whether the Post has ever described him as such in its reporting, I did a Nexis search. What I found was that at no time in the past few weeks has Chen -- whose work included shedding a spotlight on…

Despite devoting 33 stories to the dramatic case of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, NBC and ABC have all but ignored the major cause of the human rights activist: Opposing the communist country's policy of forced abortion and sterilization. From April 28 to May 7, the two networks only mentioned this detail five times– and then only in passing. Although Chen's high profile plight might…

In the domain of what properly constitutes human rights issues, forced abortions and sterilizations have to fall in that category. So why isn't the Washington Post describing Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng as a "human rights activist"? In two stories packaged side-by-side on page A9 of the May 8 paper, the Post's Andrew Higgins and Keith B. Richburg failed to use the term to describe Chen…

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Thursday fretted about the "very tough spot" a Chinese dissident and human rights activist has put Hillary Clinton in. On Friday's Good Morning America, Josh Elliott kept the spotlight on Clinton, lamenting that the Secretary of State is "caught in the middle" of this ongoing diplomatic crisis. Rather than start his report by focusing on Chen…

Tim Carney has an excellent post this morning at the Washington Examiner about how the media are reluctant to note the reason that Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng -- who is believed , but not confirmed, to be in hiding in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing -- is in hot water with the Communist government. Chen "has exposed the horrors of China’s one-child policy, including forced abortions and…