Despite its seemingly outlandish location, Caojiawan Station’s location is part of an insightful plan that anticipates growth in rapidly modernizing China – so say Chongqing Rail Transit employees.
The framing of journalistic neutrality? The headline is correct, the attribution is also correct. The article reports facts without editorialization. There was in fact a station in the middle of nowhere, the transit authority did indeed provide the quoted justification. Pictures went viral, it explained the pictures. If anything, it puts planning in a sympathetic light by reporting the intention instead of making fun of the station.
I just don’t think the article conveys the incomprehensibility of planning that you’re claiming it does. There are surely enough actual cases of that phenomenon that you don’t have to scrape the barrel for weak examples.
Which part specifically is biased, and what bias is that?
If you’ve emerged from a gleaming modern metro station only to find yourself in a vast wasteland, it’s probably down to one of two scenarios.
Either you’ve time warped to a post-apocalyptic future, or you’re at Caojiawan Station near the city of Chongqing in China.
Opened in October 2015 to connect the rural suburb of Caijiagang with the city center, Caojiawan Station has become legendary throughout China because of its bizarre appearance in the middle of nowhere.
The station’s three exits – only one of them is in use now – are all hidden among overgrown weeds on barren land.
As photos taken earlier this year show, there are no residential buildings, paved roads, shops or other public transportation in sight. And very few commuters.
That’s still the case today.
A station worker recently told Chongqing Morning Post: “Very few passengers get off at this station. Most of the time, there will be no passenger boarding or alighting here.”
Despite its seemingly outlandish location, Caojiawan Station’s location is part of an insightful plan that anticipates growth in rapidly modernizing China – so say Chongqing Rail Transit employees.
“Caojiawan Station may not be in the most popular area for now,” one worker told Chinese media company Manner Video, a Chinese digital video production company. “But with the development of the rail route, it’s possible that it’ll attract more people to the area and help hasten urban development along the line.”
It’s not the first time Chongqing’s mass transit system has set the internet ablaze.
Earlier this year, a video showing a light rail passenger train passing through a 19-story apartment building – where there is a transit stop on the sixth and seventh floor of the building – went viral.
The city’s newly built Huangjuewan Flyover also caught netizens’ attention thanks to its crazily dense tangle of roadways.
Connecting roads in eight directions on five levels with more than 20 ramps, Huangjuewan Flyover is the largest and most complicated hub interchange in country’s southwest area.
The bias in this article is pretty obvious once you start looking for it. For starters, the author frames the whole thing like “look at this ridiculous useless station in the middle of nowhere” and then buries the actual explanation at the end with a major side eye.
As I’ve already explained, the biggest tell is the phrase “so say Chongqing Rail Transit employees.” By adding “so say” instead of just saying “Chongqing Rail Transit employees explained” or “according to” the author makes it sound like the workers are making excuses or spinning a story. It creates this vibe of “yeah that’s what they want you to believe” without actually saying anything false. It’s a classic subtle way to plant doubt.
Another one is “despite its seemingly outlandish location”. The word “seemingly” does a lot of heavy lifting here. It lets the author call the location outlandish while technically covering themselves with the “seemingly” qualifier. But the reader walks away thinking how outlandish this all is.
And then there is “it’s possible that it’ll attract more people” which is a direct quote from the employee. The author chose to include the most hedged and uncertain phrasing possible. The employee probably said something more confident about the planned development, but the article picks the one sentence that sounds like a maybe and uses it as the closing argument. The employees look like they are grasping at straws.
The article also uses the phrase “a Chinese digital video production company” right after the Manner Video name. That seems neutral on its face but actually reminds the reader “this is a Chinese source so take it with a grain of salt”. Compare that to how they describe the original complaint “a station worker recently told Chongqing Morning Post” which is presented as pure fact without any disclaimer whatsoever.
Meanwhile the description of the flyover uses “crazily dense tangle of roadways” which is pure editorial. That is not a factual description. That is the author telling you how to feel about it.
So yeah the article rather hamfistedly sets up a “can you believe this absurd station” tone, quotes the actual explanation as a weak maybe, and uses loaded framing like “so say” to make the reasonable answer sound like corporate puffery. The bias is in how they frame the whole thing.
I really don’t think that’s an objective reading, it seems more like you’re hunting for justifications to call it biased because it isn’t biased in favor of China.
I didn’t get the vibe you’re claiming at all. The vibe I got was “This station has been made famous for the bizarre surroundings, but it’s actually part of an expansion plan”. The author didn’t create the “seemingly outlandish location” framing, they’re responding to it, it already existed. I read the “seemingly” exactly opposite to you, that they’re acknowledging how it looks but clarifying that there’s more rationale than the existing social media framing would suggest.
Assuming that the employee they quoted was overall less hedged is speculation. I’m no expert on Chinese culture, but in my personal experience they tend to be more reserved and matter-of-fact. If you interpret hedging as grasping at straws, that seems like a you thing. To me, that feels more like the employee trying to stick to the facts.
Similarly, interpreting specifying that Manner Video is a Chinese production company feels more like an aside to clarify who that is for a western audience than calling their reliability into question. ____ Morning Post doesn’t really need explanation, since that’s a pretty familiar newspaper naming scheme.
The description of the flyover is not particularly editorial, it is crazily dense. I also don’t see how that’s a negative portrayal. To me, it reads more positive than anything. “Look at this complex interchange, it reinforces the focus Chongqing has put on comprehensive infrastructure”.
It really seems like you’re trying to impose a bias, and interpret fairly neutral reporting about a seemingly strange (again, referring to the existing framing on Chinese social media) infrastructure project as much more skeptical than the text suggests.
Again, there are plenty of actual examples of what you’re trying to criticize. Highlighting this example makes you look like you’re grasping at straws yourself. Reading the article objectively, I saw a relatively light-hearted and neutral justification for a station which was making the rounds on social media as a bizarre phenomenon. Why not just stick to examples that don’t rely on subjective framing? There are surely plenty of those.
I’m aware. Seemed like a potential middle-ground learning moment, but alas at least it may temper the lurkers. That’s who it’s always really for anyway.
Yep and it’s also important to consider the political/economic climate.
The 2010s had most media groups reporting on rapid, ostensibly directionless growth in China. One of the more recognized themes were the “ghost cities”, so I imagine this got a lot of attention for its apparent absurdity. I honestly can’t remember this one but I must have seen a hundred stories like it.
Remember that western propaganda is always a projection, it was most likely a whataboutism for the real ghost towns in US and Eastern Europe where capitalism hollowed the local communities to the point of drastic population drop.
Acknowledging a metro station in the middle of nowhere, in response to circulating pictures of it, is not really misleading at all. Headlines matter in getting people to read your article. The headline is accurate, and the article doesn’t ridicule the station, it just addresses it.
The misleading part is “middle of nowhere” instead of “active construction site planned to house x million people in the future” because that would make it look like a future plan instead of dystopian. I think you’re lying if you say you don’t understand that’s what this article/headline is implying.
Oh, so now I’m paranoid! Sure, context matters and that’s exactly why this being out of context is negative framing at best; that’s not paranoid and it’s how media works, you can generate more clicks based on your headlines and thumbnails & that’s why things are framed certain ways.
Yes, paranoid. In this specific case, the station had already gone viral for being in the middle of nowhere. That was not an original framing by the author, it was an existing framing that they gave context for. If anything, their framing is positive, since they explained that while it looked bizarre, it had a rational explanation.
Maybe if they came up with the “middle of nowhere” framing themself, you’d have a point. But they didn’t.
I mean, from that article:
Even here the ‘so say’ bit clearly creates the same framing as the title.
The framing of journalistic neutrality? The headline is correct, the attribution is also correct. The article reports facts without editorialization. There was in fact a station in the middle of nowhere, the transit authority did indeed provide the quoted justification. Pictures went viral, it explained the pictures. If anything, it puts planning in a sympathetic light by reporting the intention instead of making fun of the station.
I just don’t think the article conveys the incomprehensibility of planning that you’re claiming it does. There are surely enough actual cases of that phenomenon that you don’t have to scrape the barrel for weak examples.
If you think that’s what journalistic neutrality looks like I really don’t know what else to tell you here.
What part of the headline or article is not neutral? It doesn’t disparage the existence of the station at all.
None of it is neutral, and the bias is incredibly obvious to anybody reading it objectively.
Which part specifically is biased, and what bias is that?
The bias in this article is pretty obvious once you start looking for it. For starters, the author frames the whole thing like “look at this ridiculous useless station in the middle of nowhere” and then buries the actual explanation at the end with a major side eye.
As I’ve already explained, the biggest tell is the phrase “so say Chongqing Rail Transit employees.” By adding “so say” instead of just saying “Chongqing Rail Transit employees explained” or “according to” the author makes it sound like the workers are making excuses or spinning a story. It creates this vibe of “yeah that’s what they want you to believe” without actually saying anything false. It’s a classic subtle way to plant doubt.
Another one is “despite its seemingly outlandish location”. The word “seemingly” does a lot of heavy lifting here. It lets the author call the location outlandish while technically covering themselves with the “seemingly” qualifier. But the reader walks away thinking how outlandish this all is.
And then there is “it’s possible that it’ll attract more people” which is a direct quote from the employee. The author chose to include the most hedged and uncertain phrasing possible. The employee probably said something more confident about the planned development, but the article picks the one sentence that sounds like a maybe and uses it as the closing argument. The employees look like they are grasping at straws.
The article also uses the phrase “a Chinese digital video production company” right after the Manner Video name. That seems neutral on its face but actually reminds the reader “this is a Chinese source so take it with a grain of salt”. Compare that to how they describe the original complaint “a station worker recently told Chongqing Morning Post” which is presented as pure fact without any disclaimer whatsoever.
Meanwhile the description of the flyover uses “crazily dense tangle of roadways” which is pure editorial. That is not a factual description. That is the author telling you how to feel about it.
So yeah the article rather hamfistedly sets up a “can you believe this absurd station” tone, quotes the actual explanation as a weak maybe, and uses loaded framing like “so say” to make the reasonable answer sound like corporate puffery. The bias is in how they frame the whole thing.
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I really don’t think that’s an objective reading, it seems more like you’re hunting for justifications to call it biased because it isn’t biased in favor of China.
I didn’t get the vibe you’re claiming at all. The vibe I got was “This station has been made famous for the bizarre surroundings, but it’s actually part of an expansion plan”. The author didn’t create the “seemingly outlandish location” framing, they’re responding to it, it already existed. I read the “seemingly” exactly opposite to you, that they’re acknowledging how it looks but clarifying that there’s more rationale than the existing social media framing would suggest.
Assuming that the employee they quoted was overall less hedged is speculation. I’m no expert on Chinese culture, but in my personal experience they tend to be more reserved and matter-of-fact. If you interpret hedging as grasping at straws, that seems like a you thing. To me, that feels more like the employee trying to stick to the facts.
Similarly, interpreting specifying that Manner Video is a Chinese production company feels more like an aside to clarify who that is for a western audience than calling their reliability into question. ____ Morning Post doesn’t really need explanation, since that’s a pretty familiar newspaper naming scheme.
The description of the flyover is not particularly editorial, it is crazily dense. I also don’t see how that’s a negative portrayal. To me, it reads more positive than anything. “Look at this complex interchange, it reinforces the focus Chongqing has put on comprehensive infrastructure”.
It really seems like you’re trying to impose a bias, and interpret fairly neutral reporting about a seemingly strange (again, referring to the existing framing on Chinese social media) infrastructure project as much more skeptical than the text suggests.
Again, there are plenty of actual examples of what you’re trying to criticize. Highlighting this example makes you look like you’re grasping at straws yourself. Reading the article objectively, I saw a relatively light-hearted and neutral justification for a station which was making the rounds on social media as a bizarre phenomenon. Why not just stick to examples that don’t rely on subjective framing? There are surely plenty of those.
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aww it’s so adorable when libs start projecting
I’m aware. Seemed like a potential middle-ground learning moment, but alas at least it may temper the lurkers. That’s who it’s always really for anyway.
Yep and it’s also important to consider the political/economic climate.
The 2010s had most media groups reporting on rapid, ostensibly directionless growth in China. One of the more recognized themes were the “ghost cities”, so I imagine this got a lot of attention for its apparent absurdity. I honestly can’t remember this one but I must have seen a hundred stories like it.
Remember that western propaganda is always a projection, it was most likely a whataboutism for the real ghost towns in US and Eastern Europe where capitalism hollowed the local communities to the point of drastic population drop.
headline matters
Acknowledging a metro station in the middle of nowhere, in response to circulating pictures of it, is not really misleading at all. Headlines matter in getting people to read your article. The headline is accurate, and the article doesn’t ridicule the station, it just addresses it.
The misleading part is “middle of nowhere” instead of “active construction site planned to house x million people in the future” because that would make it look like a future plan instead of dystopian. I think you’re lying if you say you don’t understand that’s what this article/headline is implying.
You can think what you like, but that’s a deeply paranoid perspective. It’s just normal light journalism. Context matters.
Oh, so now I’m paranoid! Sure, context matters and that’s exactly why this being out of context is negative framing at best; that’s not paranoid and it’s how media works, you can generate more clicks based on your headlines and thumbnails & that’s why things are framed certain ways.
Yes, paranoid. In this specific case, the station had already gone viral for being in the middle of nowhere. That was not an original framing by the author, it was an existing framing that they gave context for. If anything, their framing is positive, since they explained that while it looked bizarre, it had a rational explanation.
Maybe if they came up with the “middle of nowhere” framing themself, you’d have a point. But they didn’t.
How can you simultaneously play dumb and act condescending?
Yes and their box network is better than any old stars subway networks that you could find in Europe.