Imagethief, being an arrogant son of a bitch and a bona-fide member of the Ivory Tower Elite, is seldom interested in what the common man has to say. Nothing gets me to change the channel faster than an "iReport" segment on CNN, or the BBC equivalent. Of course, most professional pundits are equally useless, so in a sense, my contempt is equal-opportunity. There is a limited amount of good, thoughtful analysis out there. And then there is a sea of crap (arguably including this blog).

Unfortunately, crap is useful. Especially when people are cherry-picking comments to drive home a preconceived idea or message. You see one strain of this in the use of comments from Chinese Internet posts to liven up stories on controversial Chinese issues. It makes for lively copy, but it represents a particularly extreme sample composed largely of adolescent men operating under a reassuring cloak of anonymity. Imagine if you tried to illustrate American popular sentiment by quoting only the most extreme points of view from American political blogs. The rest of the world would have America quarantined and sterilized as a precaution.

The Chinese authorities do perhaps share some blame for this, since they've historically made it tricky to interview Chinese people on delicate topics. But they're equally complicit. Cherry picking the comments isn't just some trick of our fiendish western media, as you can see from this China Daily story in which various tourists speak in glowing terms of how their visit to Beijing has made the scales fall from their eyes:

Pippa Haughton, 20, was amazed by the efficiency of the city's public transportation system. "I found the subways really good," says Haughton. "We also took the buses to work everyday, and it was great."

Twenty-year-old student Abbey Wright admitted she thought she would see a poorer city.

"I was expecting more poverty," she says. "But, I haven't really seen much poverty here."

First-time visitor Dan Collis, who was astounded by Olympic venues like the Bird's Nest and Water Cube, said the Chinese capital was a far cry from how the country is often depicted back home through American media.

***

"It's different here from what was portrayed," says the 47-year-old Boston-native, adding he had "no problems" obtaining a visa despite media reports claiming difficulties for tourists. "Everything was above and beyond what I expected."

His American buddy Gary Coupal also praised China for its strong organization of the Games.

"I was really proud of China because they really came through despite the Western media's continuance bashing of the Olympics," says the 52-year-old. "I think they (Western media) kept more people away than any fear of the Chinese government."

"China pulled it off and did a great job," he adds with a grin.

And so on. I particularly like how the editors felt the need to make sure you knew Mr. Coupal was refering to "western media" in the second half of his quote but somehow missed the word "continuance".You gotta have your priorities straight.

Imagethief agrees that the Games went splendidly, and Beijing was pretty much at its best. Visitors were right to be impressed with Beijing which, I'd be the first to admit, is in many ways a very cool city. And I am sure all these commenters are totally sincere. After all, just because Imagethief's father had to go to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco four times last March and ask me to send him a formal letter of invitation and copies of all my visa, work permit and residency documentation so he could come meet his grandson doesn't mean that everyone had such an annoying experience. And tourists can't well expected to be roaming around the poor villages in the rural areas of Beijing municipality, especially with all the Olympic checkpoints in place.

But I also think it should be against international law to publish any story like this without making all the comments collected by the reporters available to the public, perhaps via the technological miracle of the Internet. Because I would really like to see the comments that ended up on the cutting room floor:

"I couldn't get a visa and I had to sneak my way into the country across the Burmese border," said American tourist Biff Snyderman. "Then I bought a bunch of counterfeit Olympic tickets. You people are all crooks and thieves."

Well, we'll just stop rolling the tape right now, Mr. Snyderman. Thank you so much for your time. Please stay here until the relevant authorities arrive with some duct tape.

But perhaps it wasn't even necessary to cherry pick in this case. After all, everyone they spoke to probably had Olympic tickets and perforce had successfully obtained a visa. Wander around Wangfujing and the Olympic Green interviewing foreigners and you're probably selecting for a certain point of view as surely as western journalists are when they comb the Internet chat rooms looking for nationalist rants.

And even taking the time to gather vox pop may be redundant when you can simply rewrite foreign coverage. Black and White cat had a great example of this a few days ago. Deadline coming? Rewriting too much trouble? Just write a glowing meta-story about the foreign story of your choice, as McLatchy's Tim Johnson discovered that Xinhua did with one of his pieces:

This time, Xinhua or China Daily didn’t actually carry the story, applying the scissors to negative paragraphs. Rather, Xinhua wrote a story about the story. Here’s what the agency said:

 

U.S. media: Beijing Olympics a "clear success"

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A week into the Beijing Olympic Games, athletes brim with praise for the Olympics venues, and the Games are seen as a "clear success," the McClatchy newspapers reported Friday.

Tim thoughtfully provides his original headline and lede:

Now here’s the actual story I wrote:

China sees Games as success, thanks to rain and fakery

By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers

BEIJING — A week into the Summer Games, athletes brim with praise for the Olympics venues, rain has mercifully cleared the skies of smog and China beams at its success even as it deflects charges of "phony spectators" and other fakery at the games.

So, really, who needs vox pop?

 

Update:

 

See also Kaiser's interesting and opinionated post on Internet vox pop here.