Chubb mentions several ways how Western journalists have influenced the movement, either through personal contacts or by their reporting: First, through discussions and conversations with Chinese dissidents, they increased their knowledge of political freedoms and democracy outside China; secondly, in some cases they gave direct material support by donations or by paying higher "subricription fees" for the journals, also by procuring material and equipment for them or handing publications otherwise not available in China to them. It is mentioned that in one instance an Amnesty International report on political imprisonment in China has been passed on, it was later quoted in one of the dissident journals. Thirdly, in at least one case, a foreign journalist established a channel of communication between the activists and the Chinese leadership, when the US columnist Robert Novak transmitted questions and demands from the Democracy Wall to paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and related Deng's answers back to the crowds at the Wall. And last but not least, many reports by foreign correspondents on the ideas and activities of the "Beijing Spring" were beamed back into China by Mandarin short-wave services like the VOA or BBC.

Andrew Chubb - who has mainly analyzed the big English language media - observes some very selective and one-sided reporting in the sample he studied. Many correspondents portrayed the "Beijing Spring" misleadingly as a mainly pro-Western movement that just wanted to copy the freedoms and democratic institutions from Europe and in the United States. The reports often emphasized exactly such aspects, while they ommitted for example the fact that a majority of the activists preferred to speak of "socialist" democracy. No wonder, says Chubb, that Wei Jingsheng, who attacked the Communist Party more than all the others, became the most quoted and revered of the dissidents, although he was rather considered by his fellow activists a marginal figure of the movement (p.44). 

Another point made by Chubb is that the reporters from France, Britain or the US seemed to be more interested in power struggles within the leadership or in dazibaos attacking high-ranking politicians by name than in the substance of the political debates and personal motives of the activists. And often the correspondents misconceived the specifically Chinese backgrounds of the Beijing Spring that made it quite different from dissident movements in Eastern Europe.

It is clear that both sides - rights activists and the Chinese leadership - have tried to use the international media for their advantage: The Democracy Wall campaigners hoped for - and eventually gained - moral and (occasionally) also material support. On the other side many Western media heaped excessive praise on Deng Xiaoping's leadership and greatly enhanced his international reputation. It was like this, that in the international public opinion, he became seen as the man who allowed open debates on democracy and freedom of expression, the man who promoted profound economic reforms, and also the man who contained the conservative Maoist faction within the Party, and thus profoundly changed China's course.