Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Ranks 17th in Freedom of the Press
reimero writes "According to this article on Yahoo! Germany the U.S. has experienced "serious restrictions" in freedom of the press, according to Reporters without borders' first worldwide press freedom index. Finland, Iceland, Norway and the Netherlands came in tops. An interesting study, to say the least."
You mean reporters without jobs....never heard of them.
WTF? Over?
In my opinion the United States of America would be further down the list. The government censors almost every tabloid out there. The only ones that they do not are Weekly World News and the National Enquirer. Anything the government wishes to remain a secret does. We might just get rumors of such, but never the full story.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
IZZY ASPER
CanWestGlobal.com
This dude owns the majority of newspapers across Canada. In my area, Vancouver, he owns both major local papers, plus a boatload of other smaller semi-weeklies, etc. Kind of hard to get good unbiased reporting regarding Vancouver & BC-related issues.
He recently fired an editor for writing a pro-palestinian editorial who didn't tow the unstated company line. Oh, did I mention Izzy Asper is a Zionist Jew?
*sigh*
Two comments:
1) On-topic: Your Russian professor is probably one of those fsck-ed up immigrants (russian or otherwise) who came to US with some weird ideas about what it's like here, got a shock when reality disagreed with their dreams and got angry at USA for it. Usually, they are not the brightest of immigrants, and I would advise you to listen to those who appreciate what they have gained by moving to US.
Having spent over 1/2 my life in USSR, I will gladly attest to the fact that the freedom (other than freedom to be a drunkard) in the US is a lot bigger than in USSR. Including freedom of the press.
If you think US is so bad, feel free to move to another country - yet another freedom that people in USSR lacked till 1990s. Such people are a lot worse than those who claim "USA is the best" without having seen anywhere else to compare - at least, the latter are consistent.
2) Off-topic: the fact that he is a professor of Russian, means that quite possible that he is an idiot, from my experience. As one of the examples, my wife's Prof is a total moron, both life-wise and also in terms of knowing his subject. So were some others I've encountered.
-DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
As long as you don't dispute the official story of the Holocaust, don't say anything that can be considered anti-semitic, never say Hitler had any redeeming qualities, and don't try to sell you grandfather's old medals and uniforms in the paper.
None of the above applies to me, but at least in America, if I wanted to be an idiot, racist, insensitive jerk, I have the right to make it known. How many poeple in Germany are in jail for one of the above offences?