Original sentence: Western news organizations disseminated the story as given by the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua
Edited sentence: Kilgour and Matas say implementation of these strategies meant staged attempts to make the Chinese population think that practitioneres "committed suicide by self-immolation.The Washington Post in August 2001 wrote that the authorities adopted three strategies to "crush" Falun Gong: violence against practitioners who refuse to renounce their beliefs; 'brainwashing' to force all known practitioners to abandon Falun Gong and renounce it, and a media campaign to turn public opinion against the practice.Western news organizations disseminated the story as given by the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, without the possibility of verifying it independently, amidst tight state censorship