Western reporters covering HK protesters need a reality check

The gruesome scene of Fu Guohao, a Global Times reporter, being searched, tied up, humiliated and beaten up by Hong Kong protesters, or more precisely a mob, on Tuesday was broadcast live by many Western news channels. Only that while broadcasting it the channels identified Fu as a Hong Kong police undercover, until Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times, tweeted that Hu is a reporter for the paper.

So far, I have not heard any Western journalists or news outlets condemning the brutality against a fellow journalist. The Voice of America, a US government-funded organization, refuses to acknowledge the basic fact, saying in its report that VOA cannot verify Fu's identity as a reporter. But it did not raise such a question when it called Fu a police undercover.

That many Western journalists covering the Hong Kong protests already reached a "verdict" before even going to the scene is nothing new. To them, China and the Chinese government are always wrong while the opposite side, whoever it may be, is always right. Talk about inherent prejudice.