Re: AMERICA'S YELLOW PRESS

"ltlee1" <ltlee1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:687fc208-4b1b-49e2-92a6-f1121b483fc8@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Jul 2, 12:19 am, "Toby" <kyma...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > Without getting into philosophy, how does it follow that because
yellow
> > press exists as part of free press America has become a democracy 
> > without
> > citizens (which does not even make sense, since a democracy cannot
exist
> > without citizens)?
>
> ;If you hadn't read the article cited in the beginning post. Please do.
> ;The author, actually William Lind, lamented that the American press is
> ;degenerating into yellow press. He did not say yellow press exists as
> ;part of free press. If you want to relate the two, then American free
> ;press = American yellow press according to William Lind.
>
> Having been in the news business for over 20 years, I totally agree with

> Mr.
> Lind. Yes, unfortunately, the US press is becoming more and more like
the
> Chinese press, cedeing their role as independent and critical watchdogs 
> and
> mindlessly printing "government bulletins".

I see. You agree that thhe American press is turning into the yellow
press based on you experience.

I agree that on balance the mainstreamWestern press is, in some ways, less

thorough and independent than it has been in the past. I do not agree that

it is turning into "yellow" press, which is characterized by false and 
sensationalistic re****ting. There was a bad period of yellow press about a

century ago, which was counterbalanced by an upsurge in serious journalism

soon after. And in any case there are at present many alternative news 
sources available, especially on the Internet.

Sadly, since China employs over 100,000 people to censor the Internet, in 
the name of "harmonizing" it, Chinese people are denied even this source
of 
information.

> However this process is much
> more complete in China than in the US, and hence my assertion that the
US
> press, at its worst, is still light years ahead of what is on offer in 
> PRC.

You are repeating yourself. If you are going to make comparison,
please lay out your objective criteria? Else your accusation is not
meaningful.  Anyway, the Chinese media does not claim to be a "free
press." And no one should see it as so. As I had explained before, all
presses handicap the truth. One is either a fool or a liar if he clams
that more bookies means better better chance of picking the winner.

So you yourself admit that the Chinese press is not free. If it is not
free 
it must be beholden to someone, right? And that someone is the CCP,
correct? 
So it serves the interests of the government at the expense of other 
interests. So, you have answered your own question.

> There has also been an big accounting in that regard in the years after 
> the
> Iraq invasion and occupation, with major news sources such as the New
York
> Times offering large and sincere mea culpas for their lack of 
> responsibility
> in uncritically towing the government line. And throughout the darkest 
> days
> of press kowtowing, there existed a vigorous, if marginalized, sector of

> the
> press critical of both the government and the mainstream media. Unlike
in
> China, they were neither censored nor prosecuted for their stand.

So?
As a reader, the failure of American journalist and its tragic
consequence is obvous. American press misled and misinformed the
American public such that 2 out of 3 beleived the linkage between Iraq
and 9/11. Their misunderstanding led to their sup****ting the ivasion
of Iraq. This made the "independent" press a war enabler. If I can
vote between the censoring/prosecution of a handful of journaolists
and the death of thousands of American soliders and millions of
Iraqis, I will have no problem choosing the former.

You are Chinese; I would not expect you to understand my argument, however

it was precisely because some of the press lost their independence and 
became government lapdogs that this fiasco happened. Since that time steps

have been taken in the press to ensure that such a lapse does not occur 
again. In China the press are nothing but government propagandists; they 
have no independence, thus in China they could (and are) far worse
enablers 
of government policy than ever could happen in the West at its lowest
point.

And of course your argument is competely contradictory. You are in favor
of 
the authorities prosecuting journalists for towing their line? That could 
only happen in China...

> ;As for "democracy without citizens." it is the title of a book by a
> ;professor Robett Entman. He criticized the American press because it
> ;is not serving the audiences and enabling them to be responsible
> ;citizens. Hence America is like a democracy without citizens. The 9/11-
> ;Iraq case demonstrated that Professor Entman's citicism was right on
> ;target. American citizens were misinformed and misled by the so
> ;called free press to sup****t the invasion of Iraq.
>
> The mistake you make here is that while the press failed in their
> responsibility to remain independent and critical, they remained free,
> unlike in China, where media repression is overt and journalists are
> regularly jailed for exercising their profession. Please read and
comment 
> on
> this:
>
> http://www.campaigns.ifex.org/alerts/content/view/full/87830/

Nothing more "Timothy McVeigh rent a truck; Timothy McVeigh got
executed." Objectively speaking, both statements are truth. Hoever, it
does not mean that Tim McViegh got executed soley for renting a
truck.

What does that mean?

Do you admit that China represses journalists, as re****ted in this link?

Here are some more that I would ask for your comments on:

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=26930
http://www.2008olympicsbeijing.org/pressrepressionchina.htm
http://www.wan-press.org/article16862.html
http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/August/200708081551151xeneerg0.963421.html
http://thefungus.wordpress.com/2008/04/12/beijing-olympics-press-repression/
http://www.freepress.net/node/42117
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/22/AR2008062201586.html
http://worldpolicy.org/journal/articles/wpj03-1/kurlantzick.html

I'm sorry to say, though, that if you happen to be in China none of those 
websites will be viewable--they are all censored. From the last link:

"Beijing has also made average Internet users complicit in its crackdown
on 
Internet- based dissent. The state and provincial governments have set up 
Internet police brigades staffed with over 40,000 people and designed to 
"maintain order" on the country's computer networks. These brigades
include 
workers at Internet ****tals, cafes, and other Internet "on-ramps" who hack

into users' accounts, monitor Web viewing, and block access to websites 
providing information about Falun Gong, for example. A recent study by two

Harvard researchers, Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman, found that 
China has the most extensive Internet censor****p in the world, with the 
government regularly denying access to over 19,000 websites. The list of 
banned sites includes those of foreign news organizations, Taiwanese 
organizations, and Chinese pro-democracy groups. Users who repeatedly try
to 
access these sites are jailed. As the authors of the study noted, "Chinese

network filtering is an im****tant instrument of state Internet policy, and

one to which significant technical and human resources continue to be 
devoted."

Toby