Re: AMERICA'S YELLOW PRESS

> Alternatives for the sake of having alternatives, for those who have the
> intelligence and interest to try to ferret out the truth. The Chinese
have
> no such choice. They are forced to eat whatever the government puts on
the
> table.

Those who have intelligence can tell that the press is always reflects
the opinions of a small group of people re****ting on a tiny slice of
world events according their own criteria. The only difference is
this: In a guided press, the criteria are the criteria of hte
government which mission is to satisfy the needs of the people.  In
the so called free press, the criteria are the criteria of the
cor****ations which mission is to maximize profit for the
shareholders.

You make the assumptions that the government's mission is to satisy the 
needs of the people, without defining which people. It has always been the

case that those in power seek to remain in power, and in any situation in 
which scarcity exists and there is a conflict between personal and general

welfare,  the needs that government officials seek to satisfy are their
own.

Your own government has admitted that combatting corruption is critical
and 
the fate of the party depends on doing so in an effective and timely
manner.

Except perhaps at the very top, the CCP is corrupt through and through. 
This, by definition, means that there is a distinction between the "needs"

of the people and the needs of the government officials, at the expense of

the former.

However this is digression. Essentially you are saying that the government

can lie to people for their own good, if it perceives this as serving
their 
needs. But it is not the mass of people who get served by such dishonesty,

it is the select people who promote it. And such a philosophy leaves the 
door open to the worst forms of tyranny and abuse.

The whole point of having a free press is to act as a watchdog over those 
who exercise power, in order to inhibit them from misusing that power.
Again 
you confound issues. Any tampering with a free press is to be avoided, 
whether by those who wield power as government officials or by those who 
wield power privately as cor****ate officers. Just because a free press can

be tampered with does not mean that the concept is flawed and that it
should 
be discarded, rather, a free press has to be strengthened so that it can
act 
as a bulwark against those who would use the flow of information for 
personal gain.

And again I say: if you believe that all the officials of the CCP are 
disinterested altruists interested only in the general welfare of the 
Chinese people you are a fool who has been taken in by the Chinese media.

As the old saying goes: there are none so blind as those who will not see.

Toby
>
> In the case of 9/11-Iraq, when there is no internal security threat, the
> CCP-controlled media can afford to re****t the facts accurately, but in 
> other
> cases where the authorities deem the facts to be "inconvenient" then
they
> can say whatsoever they want with impunity, confident that no
alternative
> re****ting can challenge their version of events.

Funny.
The Chinese media could afford the truth in the case of 9/11-Iraq. Why
could American free press afford the truth?

>
> The US government baldly manipulated the media during the runup to the 
> Iraq
> war, and the performace of the mainstream media was indeed shameful. But

> the
> true facts were out there in abundance, from sources both within the US 
> and
> without.
>
> You seem to assume that the CCP will always truthfully re****t any and
all
> facts through the government-controlled media. If you truly believe this

> you
> are a fool, otherwise you are simply a liar.

I don't assume anything.
All presses handicap the truth. As a amtter of fact, the press may or
may not have the truth. But if one equates more bookies with better
chance of getting the winner, i.e. the truth, he is either a fool or a
liar.

>
> Toby- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -