About William Moss
Trans-Pacific spin doctor. Head of Global Media Relations at TSMC. Occasional writer of humor and PR analysis. This is a personal blog and opinions are my own. More information at “About Imagethief“.
Also on Substack (where full posts live now), Bluesky, the usual places.
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Tag Archives: Media
Why I don’t care about the opening ceremony’s fraudulent footprints
Or so you would start to believe from the press reports over the last day. Some have dwelt upon the lip-synched singing of hyper-precious Lin Miaoke, the impossibly apple-cheeked munchkin girl who “sang” the laudatory and self-referentially titled “I sing … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, Media, Nationalism, Olympics, Public Relations
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Tibet and the trouble with unassailable national myths
Outside of Young Frankenstein there isn’t really any such thing as a “good time” for rioting, but this might be an especially bad time for China to have a bout of punishing ethnic unrest. It hasn’t really been a banner … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, Crisis Management, Media, Nationalism, Politics, Propaganda
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Was the China corruption website collapse story “newsiness”?
The greatest contribution that comedian Stephen Colbert has made to modern society is the concept of “truthiness”. Reading from the Wikipedia definition, truthiness is: …a satirical term to describe things that a person claims to know intuitively or “from the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, China in the News, Journalism, Media, Politics, Propaganda
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Why the Yilishen ant-farming scandal was the perfect China story
Imagethief recently found himself huddled in a wintry hutong courtyard in conversation with two longtime Beijing-based foreign correspondents. During this discussion we came to the conclusion that the recent Yilishen ant-farming scandal is more or less the perfect China story. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, China in the News, Media, Politics, Weird
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What to make of Edwin Maher?
Imagethief found the LA Times article on CCTV9′s western anchorman, Edwin Maher, quite interesting. I didn’t have time to comment on it when it first appeared, but in general I found the story balanced as it presented both criticisms and … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged CCTV, China, Journalism, Media, Propaganda, Reputation
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Bang! China shoots its own Olympic PR in the foot
Imagethief, who has bid for something on the order of RMB12,000 worth of Olympic tickets, is trying resolutely to remain optimistic about the Games. Unfortunately, it’s proving harder as time goes by. Tomorrow marks the one-year-remaining milestone. This should be … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, China in the News, Crisis Management, Media, Olympics, Propaganda
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Nobody said media-whoring would be easy
If you follow the Internet in China, you may have heard of a young man who goes by the online name “Zola” (or “Zuola” to be perfectly correct). He has been billed as “China’s first citizen journalist“. Zola first attracted … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Crisis Management, Google, Internet, Journalism, Media, Public Relations
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China’s food crisis PR strategy: Blame everyone else
A few weeks into China’s rippling food quality crisis a PR strategy is coming into view. It’s a classic one: blame everyone else. Unfortunately, it’s not likely to be all that effective because of two things. First, China does actually … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, China in the News, Crisis Management, Food, Media, Politics, Public Relations, Reputation
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Asian media vows to make western media cry
Imagethief was tickled to read today in Xinhua an article from the Boao Forum for Asia, an annual Chinese talking shop, on how Asian media will rise up to challenge western media juggernauts. It seems that Asians take umbrage that … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, Journalism, Media, Politics, Propaganda, Singapore, Soft Power, Xinhua
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A funny thing happened on the way to political re-education
Imagethief was morbidly fascinated to find a Reuters article over the weekend that explains how the Chinese Propaganda Ministry has launched a point-based “demerit” system to try to encourage proper behavior from the print media: CHINA’S Communist Party propaganda department … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged China, Media, Politics, Propaganda
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