I've followed Western media studiously for years. NYT, WSJ, CNN, BBC, etc. I've yet to see a story about China that doesn't spin things negatively for China. It doesn't have to be "extreme reporting."
There are plenty of reporting on China in the western media that just reports..you know...news. You can spot check whatever china-related articles are showing on western media specific pages (assuming you aren't in China and therefore are blocked from those sources, of course):
Just browsing the headlines, most of the stories are boring reports and wouldn't incite outrage even in a wolf warrior. But those aren't the ones that get shared around as anti-chinese articles, so...you know...selection bias.
Most news is boring; e.g. look at the first 15 minutes of the CCTV 7 PM news cast, it is just what Xi Jinping did today! If you just want to consume opinion pieces, then why not just look at FoxNews? WSJ and Economist, especially, are in a different boat since they cater to business readers, and they would lose money if reporting on China was constrained to just opinion pieces.
> journalists with on-site reporting
Despite China's best efforts to deport foreign journalists, there are still more than a few left.
https://www.cnn.com/world/china
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/destination/china
https://www.wsj.com/news/types/china-news?mod=nav_top_subsec...
https://www.economist.com/china
Just browsing the headlines, most of the stories are boring reports and wouldn't incite outrage even in a wolf warrior. But those aren't the ones that get shared around as anti-chinese articles, so...you know...selection bias.