 Foreign reporters were often looked upon as "sympathetic" towards protesters as they broadcast world-wide "appeals" for the pro-democratic movement Journalist Harrison E. Salisbury described the response of the Chinese government as "xenophobic" towards foreigners and cites the criticism of foreign correspondents during the protests as evidence.As a counterpoint, Salisbury recognizes that the Chinese government believe that the United States media, particularly Dan Rather, "had distorted the picture and not presented the government's side".Salisbury attempts to understand the government perspective, reasoning that they believed "that the United States had a false idea of the nature of the student movements, [and] that American television was to blame [because it] had exaggerated the idealism of the movement".