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Press freedom
GarconDuMonde writes "Reporters San Frontiers has released it's third annual worldwide index of press freedom. Although the majority of top-ranking countries are from northern Europe, it is perhaps more interesting to note where countries such as Switzerland, Italy, the UK and the USA fall (1, 39, 28 and 22, respectively)."
The country responsible for getting the Indymedia servers pulled?
That's the country on the top of the list.
The truth is its worse than in the U.S.
In Denmark you can be jailed
for making a comment online if a judge determines that it is racist.
Makes you wonder what the motivation behind this study is.
Er, America isn't the only country that makes this a possibility nowadays, actually. Maybe 200 years ago... Maybe you could come up with a slightly more thoughtful rebuttal?
It is sad and somewhat disturbing that my old home country, South Africa is only four places behind the bastion of the free world. Remembering back to the censorship and talking to those still there, I worry about what we don't hear in the mainstream (or perhaps any) press in the US. When did this situation start to occur, i wonder?
I will never understand why the Swiss weren't invaded during WWII.
It would have been a number one priority for me, no matter which side I was on - I hate people who deliberately hide behind the veneer of neutrality through avarice and greed. Or maybe cowardice - I guess a Swiss will now reply angrily.
(Unless I want to open a bank account of course. Then I'm sure they would be neutral and all smiles again)
You have 100% freedom with blogs, and they don't have borders.
My examples here and here and in my sig. Visit them and enjoy your freedoms.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
In general, it refers to how much freedom members of the press are given, not to how free speech/publication is. For example, the US is cited for trouble giving press visas, and the arrest of reporters during demonstrations. It makes no mention of any other restrictions on speech, no mention of a climate that is hostile to some forms of the press, no mention of the way that the president grants the media access and chooses questions.
The study seems to completely ignore non-official members of the press. A few years back, this would have been fine. However, the formality of the press is dispersing. Just look at the blogging community. That's the press. I think it's a useful metric, but definitely not the final statement on the issue.
Freedom of the Press does not mean that press is fair. Fair has nothing to do with it.
Freedom of the Press means that if there is a right-wing channel, you are free to start a left wing channel. It allows for people to openly broadcast/write/etc whatever they like and not be censored because it agaisnt the goverment/an allie/a person.
Don't get mixed up, you can never have a truely unbaised report. The best you can have is a broad range to pick and choose from so that you can make your own decisions.
Unamerican Tshirt
I got the quote a bit wrong, and in this case they were threatened with a charge of disorderly conduct, but in other cases trespass has actually been formally charged.
KFG
"Socialism is the final step on the journey towards communism." and "... socialist regimes ..."
I agree with your last statement, but not this one. Socialism can't be associated with regimes. What you may be trying to say is that some misguided individuals put labels such as 'socialism' and 'communism' on their corrupt fascist schemes. Using the word 'socialism' for these things only continues the misguided use of the word that has some idealistic merits, just like 'communism' has. Call them what they are; fascist regimes with given quantifiers.
-- Home, James - it doesn't matter where that thing has b
And let's be frank, most of the US press aren't free - they're usually fairly expensive: only the larger corporations can afford them.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Surely the major goal of the co-ordinated 911 attackers was to instigate a defensive and vulnerable posture from US government, media and population.
The goal was to provoke a rash aggressive response which would get the US into the "quagmire" they're in now, with no way out and getting worse by the day.
I don't fully understand this american hatred of Switzerland, since it mostly seems to fall in one of two categories: The Banks hiding illegal money and Switzerland's neutrality.
As regards the banks, they are Switzerland's biggest employers and so do get more priviliges than they should, and they definitely did take anyone's money in the past. They don't, however, do this any longer. Saddam Hussein's money has been frozen for years and the Swiss authorities do give information on account holders to judicial enquiries from countries with which Switzerland has legal agreements. That is why criminals prefer to keep their money in the Cayman islands these days.
But I never hear any such moral preaching against the Cayman Islands.
Secondly, Switzerland is a tiny country that was surrounded by hostile nations for most of its history. For that reason the Swiss decided to become neutral, as it kept them from having to go through the ravages of the first and second world wars. Switzerland takes its neutrality seriously and doesn't support bullshit wars like the fucking stunt you yanks pulled in Iraq, or the fucking stunt that Saddam pulled in Kuwait.
Switzerland is by no means perfect, (I live here and don't really like it or the people) but it minds its own business and would like other countries to do the same.
I think you people who constantly preach about how morally corrupt Switzerland is are just ashamed of all the crap that your own country does.
Maybe it's due to the mountainous geography, and the fact that every Swiss male were armed and trained to defend their homes and country.
Talk about been bogged down.
Anyhow, I do remember reading somewhere how Adolf Hitler really did want to invade Switzerland, but yeah, I guess he realised it would be futile.
"A Saudi-American captured in Afghanistan, labeled an enemy combatant and held in U.S. solitary confinement for nearly three years without charge returned to his family Monday after agreeing to forfeit his U.S. citizenship for freedom."s sf?/base/news/1097578544287260.xml
http://www.cleveland.com/world/plaindealer/index.
Detainee forfeits U.S. citizenship for freedom
Fair trade?
Actually, as a Canadian, it was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that was foremost in my mind when I posted that.
Right at the top:
That defines a limit on freedom that does not really exist in the U.S. constitution, and leaves the limit very much open to debate. People who know anything about the Charter (including judges and lawyers) are well aware of this, and eager to push back against government attempts to curtail freedom. We know the government would get away with it if we let them. No false sense of security there.
In contrast, Americans (with the exception of a few, who are usually marginalized as "$foo-wing nutcases"), seem more willing to sit back and expect the Constitution to protect them. At least, that's my perception, as a non-American.
Living in Finland, I have some thoughts on these studies.
Firstly, most of the journalists, at least here, get educated on universities that have rather dominant leftist atmostphere. It is easy to notice that the common logic among journalists is that good journalism is so called "critical" journalism, which in turn is essentially journalism that must find a contrast with things that don't belong directly to the most obvious sphere of control for them. With their average political background, that usually means privately owned companies and persons that have politically very different world view from their own. It may be very subtle discrimination, but after decades of such opinions among the press, it becomes a public fact.
Also, many international journalist organisations were strongly supported by USSR. Their views might have been on the same side before that support began, but certainly the views intensified with that support. It is rather questionable if USSR was there just for free press.
Then there are things I want to say about the press in Finland, specifically. There's only one newspaper that can be considered of national coverage - Helsingin Sanomat. Other newspapers are either regional or limit to swedish, which is mother tongue for only couple percent of the population. There are also two daily yellow press "newspapers", but calling those true journalism is a joke. So, even if there's freedom of press, diversity of press is highly questionable on newspaper side. Fortunately, in television, there are three organisations that have good national coverage - but depth of television journalism has always its limits.
And as last thing, anecdotal example from the local scare tactics. As there is no (external) censorship, most attempts to control the media show up as court threats when specific persons get bad light in the "yellow" press, often resulting from fabricated or strongly exaggerated facts. There's a recent example that illustrated different hidden standards for freedom of press, though: Both the person in the article and the journalist were threatened by court when an article about prime ministers' father, somewhat controversial person, was published. He claimed in his article that according to some research, caucasians are measurably more intelligent on average than africans, and many asians are even more intelligent, and that this has strong element regarding the chances of nations to prosper. The actual threat came from governmental anti-racism ombudsman, and probably reflects the politico-journalistic climate around here - any discussion on these kinds of subjects should be prohibited unless, at least, we, the natives, are on the bottom. Fortunately, the legistlative bodies in Finland are reasonably detached from political views and dismissed the case - after all, the subject matter was controversial, not clearly against any proven fact, and that scientific research and press coverage of it enjoys especially high freedoms as well as high peer review scrutiny - which must not be censorship, though.
Speaking as a Finn, I have to point out that a welfare state is unlikely function in a racially heterogenous environment.
I cannot see how one could implement in the USA a social security system as extensive as we have in Northern Europe; I, for one, would not be happy to pay taxes to support people of different colour.
Call me racist or whatever, but I think this sort of instinct is quite natural; no-one wants to feed the cuckoo's young.
I believe in the USA you have churches and charities and so on to redistribute wealth among your "own kind". That's why I sympathize Bush's "faith-based" shit.
You should watch 'Outfoxed' to get some idea of quite how unfair and unbalanced Faux News really is. Fox News is owned by one the most right wing media oligarchs in the world and reflects his opinions religiously including the vitriolic bias against Clinton and the fawning cheek sucking for Bush. It's news bias is so warped that a majority of Fox News watchers (who tend to watch Fox rather than anything else) still believe WMDs have been found in Iraq. I seriously suggest you get your news from other sources...
Did he inhale?
So much of the national press in the UK is owned by non-uk, non-european nationals who impose their own political stance and prejudices on their editors that it is not surprising that it does not score as well as others. http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/me dia/mediaown.html suggests that Rupert Murdoch, through News International, controls 37% of daily newspaper sales and 39% of Sunday sales.
Even where uk companies own newspapers their proprietors have traditionally exercised a strong influence on their editors, The 'newspaper barons' Rothermere, Northgate et al and more recently Conrad Black, a Canadian turned Briton in order to accept a peerage, all saw to it that their editors took a particular line - as of course, is their right. I guess it depends on your definition of 'press freedom'.
Just because the Democrats pass for lefties in America, it doesn't mean they would anywhere else.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
I hear stories of Israeli's bombing palestinians and of palestinians bombing Israelis. IMHO the balance is weighted in favour of the palestinians because Israel uses tanks, F-16 and apache helicopters against stone throwing children and believe that is justifiable policing
And right there, you have fallen for the problem with biased media.
You have been led to believe that Palestinians bombing Israelis is similar to Israelis bombing Palestinians. There is however a big difference - The Palestinian (and indeed all Islamic) terror aims to cause as much civilian death as possible. Women, children, the elderly are all fair game.
The same CANNOT be said of Israeli military actions, which whilst potentially resulting in collateral damage do not SPECIFICALLY and STRATEGICALLY aim to kill innocent non-combatants. Israelis don't dance in the streets when a Palestinian child is killed. Can the same be said of Palestinians? No.
Equally, if you believe that Israelis are randomly dropping bombs on poor stone throwing children, you are not aware of how these children are deliberately used as human shields by terrorists holding rifles and rocket launchers (see: here for a textbook example of this disgusting abuse of children by Palestinian terrorists. Now tell me how Israel is supposed to stop the guy shooting at them?
Of course, if the media weren't implicitly biased you'd know all of this wouldn't you?
Still, I'm glad you are debating me. Someone else decided to mod me down as a troll instead. Hardly an intelligent response!
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
Some of them are novel and have not yet been widely understood. We may employ rather modern technology to process, vet, and filter information through mechanisms not so dissimilar to slashdot's, that could make many organized disinformation campaigns more difficult. It is difficult to imagine such as-yet-unseen systems operating in a socially important way, on a large scale, but it was difficult to imagine the internet itself 15 years ago. The idea is simply to augment existing social and democratic conventions with software that can allow them to scale better.
In addition, surveillance society is coming, but not in the way anyone expects. Within a decade or two audio/video recording devices with effectively unlimited recording capacity will be small enough to be a fashion accessory, or for that matter just part of your apparel. Because they can be carried everywhere and recording constantly, they will be; this will change our whole notion of privacy, really change society as we know it. These little bugs will penetrate newsrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, and back rooms, despite every attempt to keep them out. They will witness protests, halt arguments about facts, and generally improve the quality of and availability of first-generation source material by an order of magnitude. They will, most of all, make organized secrecy conspicuous, especially because "open" companies, and even political candidates, will win in the marketplace.
Democracy will always be threatened, but it can never be entirely stopped until we lose our ability to be creative in protecting it.
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Wow, you're lucky. I sort of wish we could do that here in the U.S. just to see what other countries are like. Our news probably tells us all we need to know, though.
U.S. citizens can only view news from the government sanctioned news station, Fox News. Realistically, I'm not sure that we would need anything else, though. Fox News is fair and balanced.
I heard that there is some kind of pirate television station called PBS (get this, "Public Broadcasting System" - how radical!) that shows BBC news, but I think that's only a rumor. There was also some rumor of stations that are broadcasting in Portugese, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, French, and (get this) Arabic! I don't know where that rumor came from, but I doubt it's true. I know that the government run cable company does not carry anything that isn't in American Newspeak. Who would watch any of that anyway? Everyone speaks perfect American here. There certainly aren't large population centers in major cities that speak other languages and would be interested in hearing news from their native land, because foreigners aren't allowed inside the U.S. (especially not Canadians and Mexicans, but I digress).
USA Today is the only paper we are allowed to read. I heard that there used to be a couple of papers that printed something called "AP" news, but I think this is only a rumor. I'm pretty sure our single newspaper would not print that type of news. Why would we need it, though? Our newspaper gets it's news directly from the source (i.e. the U.S. Government).
One really weird thing is that the bookstore downtown claims that it has several magazines from other countries! Seriously, they claim they have magazines from all over the world. That's so ridiculous. Everyone knows we can't import magazines into the U.S., because they are classified as "munitions". Time Magazine is so much better than anything else, though, because it contains only facts.
One of my professors had this magazine called, "Der Spiegel". I'm not sure what kind of loopy magazine that is, but I want no part of it. I looked at it once, and I think it was written in some kind of secret illegal code. He said he was a subscriber, too! I doubt that, since we can only subscribe to the government sanctioned Time Magazine. He's an academic, though, and some of them are radical. I should probably report him to the FBI.
That reminds me! There was a huge bust here the past week. People are saying it was about drugs, but I know better. I think some idiots were trying to start their own newspaper illegally! These nutcases always claim that the Constitution supposedly grants the right for any citizen to publish anything they want. That's completely insane! Everyone knows that only the Government should print the news so that the truth can be heard without being tainted. If everyone printed what they wanted, how would we know what the truth is? Really, I don't understand these people. Why can't they just read USA Today and Time? What they did was totally illegal and morally reprehensible. Besides, we don't need any other news publications, because we have the best in the world.
</SATIRE>
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.