A post on the Financial Times “Dragonbeat” blog helps to rectify the “migrant workers gone wild” media fest of the past few months.  These guys are getting it right.  Anyone interested in this topic should read the FT article. (h/t to Danwei)

My comment on the post:

[There] was never an apparent trend toward violence on the part of unemployed workers in Southern China. There were a few protests, and very little violence, by workers who were abandoned without severance pay. As these few anecdotes echoed between blog and newspaper and back again, it seemed as if the trend toward worker violence was growing. Actually, it was the same few recycled anecdotes over and over again.

Those of us who live and work here in Southern China (I run a factory in Dongguan) could see first hand how distorted and repetitive the media story was.

Yes there are many unemployed. No, they are not threatening anyone and never were. Not news to anyone living here.

The real news here is how so many of the media outlets, new and old alike, have lazily copied and amplified one another’s inaccuracies.

Newspapers complain about free content on the internet pushing them out of business.   Maybe it’s just poor quality ruining their business.

I’ve argued in the past that the labor unrest in Dongguan and Shenzhen was overplayed and over-emphasised by the western media.  Here’s another article, “Violent unrest rocks China as crisis hits” which contradicts my view.

It just doesn’t scare me as it might.  As with the articles of the past, it highlights a few anecdotes (albeit fresh ones)  about unpaid workers protesting, official malfeasance in controlling the press, an extortion scheme perpetrated by an unemployed worker.

I guess if I didn’t live here and have the perspective that I do, this article might send shivers up my spine.

Maybe not.