re: Shenzouh events
The launch was early in October of 2003. As I recall, the Chinese released the news on about the middle of the month.
O'Keefe's statement was in a news release dated October 19, 2003.
The text of the letter to the president of China, dated October 19, 2003, can be found here.
A background briefing implies that Bush also congratulated Hu personally during meetings.
If these news releases were ignored by the media, that's a whole different issue.
Apologies--I should have included the links in the first place.