smallpox

No, you just proved that there was bias from whatever the media source you were citing or from the Bush Administration. That's pretty small scope considering the rights of freedom of speech in the "west".


Because you speak of censorship, in what I consider a democratic process, freedom of speech limitations are not passed by a political party. Freedom of speech and democracy go hand in hand.
If a limitation to freedom of speech is done democratically and can be appealed, then it is justified.

I don't know how you think this doesn't relate to democracy.
Further, I specifically pointed out that I do not advocate an American system to democracy..... I don't know what you're trying to prove.
Despite this act that hasn't been in use since 1919, the US still has a lot more freedom of speech. Never mind that virtually every network except maybe FOX and CNN has criticize the war heavily (since a year into it and even before) yet I have yet to see them shut down or maneuver their news unilaterally.
But, CCTV -1 CCTV -2 CCTV -3 CCTV -4 CCTV -5 CCTV -6 CCTV -7 CCTV -8 CCTV -10 and so on all have a coincidently similar unilateralism amongst them.
Whatever the US does, it does not represent all of the "west", and doesn't justify China for its weal political system.

smallpox

Again, that's just the American system, plus both parties are incredibly similar because there's only one fundamental ideology that works. The main thing behind democracy is ACCOUNTABILITY. China doesn't have it.

pug_ster

I just proved that there are sedition acts has been in effect in WWI. Also, you are also wrong the act hasn't been in effect since 1919 because you have no proof. Here's a court case by NY times against the US govt concerning the Espionage Act. in 1971.

New York Times Co. v. United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's another discussion of the Espionage act in 2005

Daily Kos: [UPDATE] Fitzgerald preparing indictments under the Espionage Act?

Perhaps this act has been softened up a little on the sedition act, especially in prosecution of the citizens who rose against the government because freedom of speech. But in no way the restriction on the freedom of press seems to have changed during the times of war, as I explained about Iraq. And you have no proof to show otherwise.

Again, I never said that what the Chinese Propaganda was just anyways as in the example as they didn't mentioned anything about the Torch run in South Korea. Its sad, and I thought it is wrong.

Have you ever watched CCTV and its contents? I watched the news a few times here and there and they don't usually paint US, Canada and other countries in a negative light, unlike what the Western Media does to China. There's certainly censorship of alot of sensitive subjects and views that critizes China. Then again, the Western Propaganda does this to some degree.

Thoughout the discussion you wanted to ask me about democracy and democracy is just a type of government where you are free to choose your elected officials, unlike communist. However, if the basic freedoms like freedom of speech and press is compromised, I wonder if the word democracy is so great after all. As for me, I enjoy the freedoms to critize about my government, which I probably won't have in the communist government

smallpox

When I said it wasn't in use since 1919, it was because I was referring to it serving as a method to limit political dissidents based on ideology -- as that was what we were discussing. I assumed that protecting military intelligence was a given.....
And this does absolutely no justice to claims that it censors the media in the US now outside classified documents. Plus, to my knowledge the act was passed by an elected legislative assembly. That is much more that can be said about any laws passed by the CCP.
I have watched CCTV several times (being virtually the single and only channel in China) and even though they might not target the west as much as certain foreign media attack China (because there are a lot of things wrong with China in comparison to the "west") they surely hide a lot of news available to the rest of the world and pretties up whatever down side is shown (it's funny how CCTV-9 shows more bad things regarding China than CCTV-4 in a vain attempt at having a more objective image to foreigners -- but never enough to illustrate the actual magnitude of China's issues).
What do you expect out of a state ran media?
Democracy is rather an ideology emphasizing individualism and people's involvement into the political process. Communism is an economic ideology. There's no totalitarianism in Marxist's Manifesto, it actually calls for the absolute overthrow of the government -- the government being a tool of the bourgeoisie. What is commonly perceived as communism in a political context is things like the Vanguard party, Stalinism, Maoism... all totalitarian/authoritarian in scope but certainly not communist; merely peying lip service to the ideology. China is in no way shape or form communist. It has a government, a market based economy, and classes. China is authoritarian, which has always failed eventually. Why do I even need to argue that such system is no good?

mikado

It seems to me you're clutching at straws with that argument Pug_ster. Sure "Western media" can be collectively biased, and not every view point ends up getting aired on national tv. But relatively speaking, "western media" is more free, more varied, more independent and better able to challenge the government than Chinese media. To my mind, that media freedom is a good thing overall (there are some significant negatives of course).

If you're able to devise a "perfect media" which is bias free and reflects every view then I'd be interrested to hear about it. If not, then complaining of Western media bias seems rather a waste of time, and merely an excuse to avoid looking too hard at deficiencies in the Chinese media.

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anya

Yes, I quite liked Marx's idea's of 'to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability' and even more that work should be 'free conscious creative ability'. I liked a lot about Marx, who drew from Rousseau who I believed had an excellent understanding of society.

I love the humanistic aspect to Marx's work. I didn't really study the economic part to much. What I do know is that Marx's work has never been put into practice. My suspicion is that it is Utopian. In that, it is still excellent but no one has ever been able to put it into practice and far from enjoying the freedom that he envisaged, we have seen this distorted and none of his aims achieve. You cannot achieve a Marxist society by force.


Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are such important issues.

We have freedom of the press here in the UK.

But freedom of the press does not mean equal, unbiased reporting. It means that whoever is writing can write from whatever slant they want. The BBC is I think known as the most unbiased reporting in the world and that is probably true.

In a democracy, the democracy is only as good as the people are actively interested in it. Democracy then is an opportunity, but if people are not alert and do not take an interest in their democracy, it could become as corrupt as any other type of regime.

Journalists therefor have an incredible responsibility to become aware of things that are going on and to make the public aware of them.

We saw this in the UK in the run up to the Iraq war where journalists were prepared to put themselves out on a limb at times to make sure we knew the truth. At this time the US was having problems with a kind of at least emotional censorship, where the idea was going around that if people were not in favor of the Iraq war they were not being patriotic. Our journalists and the BBC kept us informed that this was going on in the US.

Despite the enormous propaganda in the US many people were shrewd enough to see through it and expose it, so while you had a sort of 'emotional censorship' people were still able to make their views heard.

Democracies make mistakes. Democracies are not free of corruption and democracies depend enormously on what the people are interested in. I think the US is now looking into all the problems over it's freedom of news before the Iraq war, so possibly the best feature that freedom of speech and freedom of the press gives over not having it is that when things have been wrong, they can be exposed and corrected.

The greatest enemy to freedom of speech is apathy. It depends enormously on the interest of the people. It is opportunity. What happens with it depends on the will of the people. Hence people have said that in a democracy people get the government they deserve. If they do not like the government they get they need to wake up and change it. This they are at liberty to do.

When freedom of speech and freedom of the press is lacking you have a situation where you simply do not know what is going on and you cannot trust a word that is said. If our politicians will on occasions try to get up to corruption, just imagine the ability for corruption where the government is not accountable.

Where our press will search out problems and being them to our attention, you only know what your government wants you to know.

The media is something which is under constant scrutiny by people here. Media has the strongest effect on what people believe is true. If you do not have information you cannot come up with a correct answer.

Our freedom of press may not be perfect but thank goodness we have it. Without hearing of things you can never know they need to be changed.

To continue to only look at the US when we are discussing problems is to have an enormously slanted view. The US is just one country. What happens there is not what happens in other places. Every country is different.

As I said, here in the UK we have freedom of the press and our journalists are good enough to fight fiercely to keep that in place. From what smallpox is saying the situation is the same in Canada and I dare say you will find that is the case in all the EU and other places.

If you always look for the one problem, you will miss the point. You are failing to look at the advantages of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. You are failing to see the obvious disadvantages of not having it.

pug_ster

I would disagree on that. Again, I am not defending CCTV media, but rather want to raise the problems of Western Media's problems. Like what smallpox said, Chinese media leaves alot of holes of stories because of censorship, thus not very effective. Alot of people are skeptical of what they read about the positive things in China anyways.

The problem of the Western Media is that it is too effective, and people actually believe what they watch the news, unlike chinese being skeptical to the news. As I explained they used 'information domination' about Iraq to keep spewing the same old message how effective they are when they are not.

Under US Control, Press Freedom Falls Short in Iraq

I don't know much about press freedoms in Canada and the UK. But it seems to fall in a similiar line with the US because it sounds too similiar to the US in certain issues. Perhaps a little watered down, but nevertheless similiar. And no, I don't have any proof, so take your guess.

Reporters sans frontières - Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index - 2006

At least according to RSF's index, the UK and Canada are nowhere near to be the most free, and especially the US. So please don't give me speech about freedom of the press in Canada or the UK until the day it becomes as free as Finland because they don't seem to respect China's Soverignity reguarding the Tibet issue.

I'm not a theorist of government but I can say that the problem but I probably agree that Canada's and UK's democratic government is probably better than the US. The Democratic government in the US are essentially run by the lobbyists which benefit their pockets rather the people's ideals. The health care system are run by health care providers.

I don't see what is the good of democracy when China haven't taken care of its basic social and economic problems. Politicans will be fighting over this and that instead of taking care of the issues. Yes, China is Authoritarian, and should remain that way until most of its social and economic problems are solved then they can slowly move towards a demorcracy government. At least I hope we can agree on that.

anya

What on earth makes you think people don't question the news here.

true, the UK did not come top in that list but look at the difference

Canada 16th equal ..... 4.50

UK 27th equal ..... 6.50

US 53 equal ..... 13.00

but China 163 ..... 94



There is no comparison. Regardless of whether you believe what you hear, you clearly have not a clue what is going on. Do you not find that a problem?

mikado

Why? Excapt as a way to divert attention from Chinese media deficiencies.

And that's a good thing?

Is that true (or rather, can you back that assertion up)? I see lots of questioning of the media in the West. And I see lots of web chat from Chinese people that recycles, consciously or not, the government line on controversial issues.

You're repeating that fallacy again! Whether or not the Western media is perfect is irrelevant to a discussion on the adequacy of the Chinese media (and vice versa). Since when did "Finland" become a gold standard, below which nobody is fit to comment?!

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mikado

Stuck out like a sore thumb, didn't it. I'm very dubious of how RSF calculated this score, but it makes a qualitative point - press freedom in China is amongst the worst in the world.

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