7 News broadcaster Amanda Abate recently called Chinese Olympic swimmer Sun Yang "one of China's cheats" during a live broadcast. Immediately after the words left her mouth, she backpedaled and said "one of a China's stars" instead. Abate explained on Twitter that it was an unintentional slip.

Amanda Abate

Facing queries from a number of viewers, Abate posted "Whoops!" and scolded a netizen for making a bigger deal of the incident than it was. She also reposted a tweet: "Not chuckled so much for a while… Oops, hopefully no one else was listening." In her repost, she added, "like the Chinese." Later she deleted both tweets.

In the past few days, 7 News has done several things to make some viewers accuse the media outlet of disrespecting China in their coverage of the Rio Olympic Games. For example, a commercial was aired while China's delegation appeared in the opening ceremony.There was also a mistake on China's national flag in broadcasting. Although a spokesperson for 7 News offered an apology, there has been no official written apology posted on the 7 News website or Facebook account so far.

Commercial was aired while China's delegation appeared

China's national flag was wrong

As a result, a number of overseas Chinese recently gathered together with a Chinese flag and demonstrated at the 7 News building in Martin Place to request an apology letter. Some Sydney residents and tourists joined in, and Brian Parker, the secretary of Construction, Forestry, Minning and Energy Union, New South Wales, also participated.

Brian Parker

7 News is not the only media outlet allegedly allowing bias into its reporting. Before this, the Herald Sun reported on Sun Yang with the headline "Sickening gesture." The Daily Mail wrote that the so-called drug cheat revealed his "talons," and speculated that Sun must be wealthy. The Daily Telegraph published a front page article in support of Horton, and announced that all the Australian athletes are clean of drugs. Meanwhile, Sun's front page article described a "champions versus cheats" scenario. 

The Herald Sun's headline

The Daily Mail's coverage

Horton's front page of the Daily Telegraph

Sun Yang's front page of the Daily Telegraph