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):

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.

Of course, I don't read "boring reports". I mostly read opinion pieces and journalists with on-site reporting.

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.

It's worth mentioning that every time I watch Joe Biden or Antony Blinken or Jake Sullivan or Nancy Pelosi or anyone from the US government hold a press conference, their words are deceitful and aggressive. That's not my imagination.

When the general public sees all this on television, it is extremely influential (such is the power of television media). And, of course, all of this is repeated on social media. So I don't think it's a strawman at all.