Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Journalists Beat Censorship With Web
chris-chittleborough writes "When Beijing tried to make a journalist's pay at one newspaper depend on official reactions to their stories, a web-savvy reporter was able to create a groundswell of public opinion and reverse the move." From the article: "Just before the meeting, Li had posted a blistering letter on the newspaper's computer system attacking the Communist Party's propaganda czars and a plan by the editor in chief to dock reporters' pay if their stories upset party officials. No one told the editor in chief. For 90 minutes, he ran the meeting, oblivious to the political storm that was brewing. Then Li announced what he had done."
"In Communist China, Web Journalist Censored, Beaten"
(Someone had to say it.)
It's not the us where they can just rag on their leaders and thumb their nose without cosequence, as much as i'd love it to be otherwise. What's to stop the party from taking revenge or setting an example by making him "disappear"? I'm concerned for this guy.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Followup story: Chinese web censors beat journalists. With sticks.
A lot of Americans, left and right, (yes, both sides do it equally) talk about giving up freedom like we can get it back in the next election. Freedom has rarely ever been given back in any form because an electorate said, "please sir, might we have some more." It usually takes overt acts of defiance which makes this journalist all the more heroic given which society we're talking about.
The irony is that in America, anyone who votes for the two major parties is voting for the rise of Fascism. The Chinese live tyranny daily compared to us. If we ever get to the point where we live like them, it'll be our fault, and I don't see many Americans today who have the guts to pull a stunt anywhere near like this. A nation that won't even tell private security officers at stores like Best Buy to leave them alone when they're harrassing them, won't stay free long.
In a related story, senior editor Li Datong has been escorted from the city, for some restful quail hunting....
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Wow.
Well, there's a plan for defeating censorship... it only takes someone outside China with an IM client and a group of people willing to forward the messages.
Especially if the messages end with "... and Kwai Chang Caine, who taught his son wisdom in a Shaolin temple, forgot to forward this message. An evil force destroyed the temple. Father and son each believed the other had perished. Then Kwai Chang Caine found the message in his chat log and forwarded it to all the people on his contact list. Now they are reunited..."
Ignore this signature. By order.
I've been noticing a lot of press on China lately, and it seems that reporters are taking braver actions than before. Do these events portend the fall of the China Communist Party? Will the CPC fall from within? If it does, that would be a wonderful tribute to the strength of human will, especially considering that the Iron Curtain required external help.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
The party's propaganda department had targeted Freezing Point in its media crackdown because it often published investigative reports that embarrassed officials, as well as essays on history, society and current events that challenged the party line.
It surprises me that they didn't just call the cops to come in there, arrest everyone and shut the whole thing down.
Or just lock the doors to the place and tell everyone to stay home and do some censored blogging.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
True events can hardly be described as bashing.
I agree we should also take notice of other countries transgressions but that doesn't mean we can ignore major stories in other countries because their quota for the month has been met.
Do not hire any more journalists with noticeable bulges in their pant crotches caused by a case of having massive balls.
If you disagree then it must be overrated, redundant or trolling.
For those who are interested in the letter that got the Chinese censors so up in arms, a copy of Li Datong's letter can be found here.
In China journalists brave jail and execution for independence. In America journalists are afraid to ask politicians questions about their crimes.
You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
--
make install -not war
The government's Internet censors scrambled, ordering one Web site after another to delete the letter. But two days later, in an embarrassing retreat, the party bowed to public outrage and scrapped the editor in chief's plan to muzzle his reporters.
This is a perfect example of both the promise and the peril of the Internet. The fact is Li, but moving quickly and quietly, was able to get his story out on the Web and probably global during the span of a 90-minute meeting. It took two days for the Communist Party in China to realize that the information had travelled beyong their reach and they had no choice but to back down.
It would be interesting to know the speed of propogation of any piece of information on the Internet, in other words, given that a piece of information is placed somewhere (blog, news site, etc.), how long would it take that piece of information to travel globally? I suppose you could figure out a rough approximation by how many times the information is linked to and from where. But even with no hard data, it goes to show that any information, reliable (in this case) or erroneous (possibly) can travel so far afield that authorities can do little to stop it without advanced warning.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
If you RTFA it's pretty cool. Li attacks the Communist Party with real communism. Whodathunk?
The core of these regulations is that the standards for appraising the performance of the newspapers will not be on the basis of the media role according to Marxism. It is not based upon the basic principles of the Chinese Communist Party. It is not based upon the spirit of President Hu Jintao about how power, rights and sentiments should be tied to the people. It is not based upon whether the masses of readers will be satisfied. Instead, the appraisal standard will depend upon whether a small number of senior organizations or officials like it or not.
Li Datong and his deputy were still fired, and as Li was the editorial heart of the China Youth Daily, even if the policy was not applied, censorship still won the day.
This seems more of a loss than a victory to me.
This must be where pies go when they die.
Li didn't seem all that worried about either, to be honest. I think you're romanticizing things a tad.
In America journalists are afraid to ask politicians questions about their crimes.
So, which is more insideous? The blatant "don't go against the groupthink, or we'll kill you"?
Or, the subtle "don't go against the groupthink, because we give nothing useful in a public press conference, and you won't be given the good stuff anymore like your colleagues. You'll be labelled a 'biased liberal', and because nobody in the administration will speak to you, you'll be unemployable"?
Study the White House press core situation, and tell me that isn't censorship in full force. The press secretary refutes any serious question with almost every trick in the logical-fallacy handbook. Unless you play along, you don't get the "government official, speaking on condition of anonymity" or "after the press conference, Scott McClellan said privately..." tidbits. Remember the days when presidents would be the ones speaking at a press conference, not a guy who keeps saying, "The President feels..."?
I recall reading recently how the WH press core got all bent out of shape about getting the news late about Cheney's little shooting incident. Where was the outrage over something that matters, like domestic spying? And if they were truly so angry, why didn't they just all get up and leave?
The White House press core are like crack whores. They rely on yet despise their pimps, occasionally developing some backbone or attitude. But at the end of the day, they're still just puppet addicts.
Please help metamoderate.
Why haven't we stopped all diplomatic relations with China? Why haven't we imposed trade sanctions?
Oh, right, China supplies us with cheap manufactured goods, and makes various U.S. companies richer.
Apparently, being a totalitarian, human-rights-suppressing government is *perfectly fine* with the United States as long as you supply us with lots of cheap goods. Oh, and buy up our debt so we can continue our fiscally irresponsible ways.
Clearly China does not do a good enough job of discrediting and ostracizing its critics in the public sphere. And clearly it has not done a good job at making the Chinese people self-centered and aloof from each other.
Play the same scenario in the story out in the US in your head, and imagine what would happen. Major media would ignore it. Mass populace would ignore it, writing it off as crackpottery, bolstered by the lack of media coverage. Most people would delete the message as an "obvious spam" or "liberal bullshit" or some such. Result effect: zero.
The Chinese people actually *care about* and *believe* these sorts of things. That's where the PRC has clearly failed. They have not properly desensitized and disinterested their public. They need a heavy dose of selfishness injected into their population. Then they could get away with an awful lot more.
Screwing US tech and CRM workers with offshoring? Who cares? Screwing the working poor with no benefits? Who cares? Screwing the poor with social service cuts? Who cares? Screwing the economy, international affairs, and budget with a poorly defensible war? Who cares?
Clearly, the Chinese people care far too much.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.