[FooBarWidget]

Funded by the state is correct. Being a mouthpiece is an opinion.

I find most of their reports to be pretty balanced and factual, even if they have an obviously mainland Chinese perspective.

Before concluding that their content is propaganda that should be dismissed out of hand, why not verify for yourself whether it's that bad? Their video content speak for themselves. You don't even have to agree with them.

The content produced by Liu Xin in particular are pretty high quality. She regularly invites guests -- even western ones -- on her show, who provide non-Chinese perspectives. Sometimes their guests even disagree with her.

If you disagree, I would love to hear why.

[jalbertoni]

Sometimes, when analyzing bias, it's more important to pay attention to what isn't said, but to what isn't ever mentioned.

For example, it's easy to be factual and accurate when you can pick subjects that don't touch anything in a list of sensitive spots.

Another thing to keep in mind is the intended audience. If they don't expect more than, say, 0.1% of the Chinese population to watch that content, they might relax the censors. There are half a dozen cases of Brazilian rock records sung in English where the international version wasn't censored, but he Brazilian version was very tamed down.

I will admit that I haven't watched their content, though, so feel free to give a rebuttal.

[FooBarWidget]

I agree that 'things that aren't said' is something one needs to look out for. This goes for both sides of the media. There is a lot of mainland Chinese perspective that the western media doesn't cover. That is why CGTN is valuable. Granted, they have their own omissions. Nothing we can do about it -- all journalists have their own biases. Still, I think watching both is more healthy than just watching one.