I've seen NYT do this with articles about China (I live in China), writing about something one-off by someone in one village, as if it is a tradition practiced by many.

Well it's not just that. Just look at hollywood movies. Every portrayal of any foreign soil is just pure prejudices/ignorance/racism/american stereotype. They seem incapable of understanding any different culture at all. I find it more pitiful (betrays their intellect) than offensive though.

>They seem incapable of understanding any different culture at all. I find it more pitiful (betrays their intellect) than offensive though.

Yes, all of Hollywood(and those evil Americans in general) is composed of stupid racists that simply can't understand other cultures, how pitiful...

Perhaps you shouldn't take the portrayal of a culture in every context as intending to be a completely accurate depiction; It is not as if American culture when depicted portrays the US accurately.

And yet on those foreign soils they prefer to watch Hollywood stuff instead of domestic.

Fiction needs to be entertaining not realistic. I never considered Dukes of Hazard and The Last Samurai documentaries.

If someone is interested in a culture - just visit the place.

Usually I'm on the 'giving' side of that dynamic (unintentionally), but I was watching the final episode of The Blacklist the other day and in it some American bad guy is thrown out of a plan over The Netherlands. The house they show him landing in is a throwback to 200 years ago, complete with a woman with covered head and wooden beams in the walls. It's around 3:14 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ISzOGRgIWI . It's hilarious that someone on the production team would actually think this is anywhere near realistic; or maybe it's just hilarious that they thought most American viewers would think a Dutch house would look like that.

(maybe the guy just accidentally landed in an outdoor museum...)

A good rule of thumb when consuming media has always been: Look at who owns said company, what their political stance is, take the reports with a grain of salt and then double check with an opposing viewpoint to get the full story.

Media always comes with a bias, good journalists try to reduce it to a limited amount as good as they can, but they often fail due to subjectivity or their employers want them to report in a certain way. The NYT isn't even trying anymore, that's why people turn away in disgust, if I want retarded opinion pieces instead of news I'd read social media BS.