Crude.
Why force it legally, when they could just have the private news sector de facto mirror what the establishment says (complete with a faux-choice between two parties), like in the US?
China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
51–60 of 147 posts
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like China sees Australia as the front line in their battle with the West. The recent nuclear submarine deal makes a lot more sense with that world view.
ANZAC are the only two European settled Western countries in Asia, so not surprising. Especially since Australia is so closely integrated into the Anglosphere.
> ANZAC are the only two European settled Western countries in Asia
It wasn't for lack of trying.
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#53I wonder why people don't demand more non-profit news or why articles written by for-profit organizations are as trusted as they are. Why should people trust articles written by NyT over articles written by Google?
Google writes news articles? The issue is freedom of expression. If individuals are allowed to speak, write and disseminate information and opinion freely and own businesses, why can't they charge for it? Well, that's a news organisation. It's not that you necessarily trust any one individual publisher, it's that a range of views are freely represented in the press generally. The Chinese constitution used to guarante…
> Google writes news articles?
Google writes PR pieces. I don't see why you should trust news articles more than PR pieces, except as links to other sources that you can check yourself like scientific articles or government agencies with data.
> The issue is freedom of expression. If individuals are allowed to speak, write and disseminate information and opinion freely and own businesses, why can't they charge for it?
You can make legally protected news organizations, and that anyone who doesn't follow those rules isn't allowed to call themselves a news site with journalists. Instead they'd be forced to call themselves opinion writers or bloggers. That way you still have the freedom of expression but lets the public clearly see who follows the basic rules of independent reporting.
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does non-profit news look like? A few rich people starting non-profit and making news might not be very trustworthy. I guess you mean a wide group of donors. But non-profits have a lot of trouble raising money without controversy. Imagine trying to solicit donations when every other story alienates half the donors. And it doesn't really answer a lot of the hard questions. Who is going to actually write the artic…
There’s NPR/PBS and it’s fantastic.
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Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
At least theoretically, if customers actually valued accuracy, they would punish news organizations that were not accurate. A for profit newspaper would need to respond to the changing market. A not for profit newspaper could easily have a backer with other motivations, where they might be willing to sacrifice accuracy to push a particular agenda. I am not sure that the problem is the news. I do not think people real…
Do people not care about accuracy? Or have they just given up?
I think people care about accuracy. The problem being that the way our brains work, we perceive as accurate whatever matches our bias.
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#56I wonder why people don't demand more non-profit news or why articles written by for-profit organizations are as trusted as they are. Why should people trust articles written by NyT over articles written by Google?
Because when people hear non-profit, they think NPR, which is wildly biased. A true facts only news outlet is likely best, but provides little entertainment value.
https://www.allsides.com/news-source/pbs-newshour
Seems centrist according to AllSides, but in my experience is has been Center-Left to Left.
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#57Americans be like "our media is owned by these two large companies, we are freedom brave".
US Gov doesn't prevent you from starting your own.
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#58In the West privately funded media has increased polarisation over the last 50 years, so having stronger public investments in media could be helpful to stop this pervasive divisiveness. China has the opposite configuration where the state controls all information and you'll be re-educated if you say the wrong thing loud enough. These are both extremes that are undesirable IMO.
I’m not sure many in the west would see divisiveness as a negative, in so much that it seems necessary to reach an stable equilibrium. Yes, one side will find the other side’s position infuriating, but China is the result of what happens when one side completely wins over the other. Because there is no equilibrium to be had, they can only emphasize unity.
Not defending China's idea at all, but with private media in this country having a financial motivation to knowingly lie is pretty reprehensible. They have the right to do it sure, and they should, but if a good portion of a populace lives in a fiction, that isn't great. And to be clear while leftist stuff can be extreme, sure, the current major problem is right wing extremist lies are clearly more detrimental just because of their popularity. It is not really a both sides issue.
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#59In the West privately funded media has increased polarisation over the last 50 years, so having stronger public investments in media could be helpful to stop this pervasive divisiveness. China has the opposite configuration where the state controls all information and you'll be re-educated if you say the wrong thing loud enough. These are both extremes that are undesirable IMO.
It's not really opposites, though. Private media is highly centralized, and the people involved are also highly involved in politics (Rupert Murdoch, for instance). In China, high up party members are generally very wealthy, and wealthy people generally are highly involved in the party, so it's the same politically-well-connected elite that would be involved in media in the west in any case - it's just backed up by formal censorship, explicit government rule, etc.
China is more extreme, and more explicit about the link between politics and media, but it's broadly speaking the same system.
PS: this is especially true of countries like the UK, where extremely stringent and abusable libel laws regularly cause financial troubles for small presses that upset powerful people.
Re: China proposes prohibiting private investment in news service sector
#60In the West privately funded media has increased polarisation over the last 50 years, so having stronger public investments in media could be helpful to stop this pervasive divisiveness. China has the opposite configuration where the state controls all information and you'll be re-educated if you say the wrong thing loud enough. These are both extremes that are undesirable IMO.
> over the last 50 years
This goes back to the Enlightenment, and has historically been considered a good thing when contrasted to state or church doctrines.
Happy to help.