Friday, January 26, 2007

China Is Our Friend!! Part 58249

Seems that "journalists" in China have ethics problems:

Chinese reporters are demanding such hush money with increasing regularity from businesses and government agencies in exchange for the withholding of unfavorable news.

In many ways, blackmail journalism grew naturally out of a system in which Communist Party censors control the news rigorously, barring reports that could be seen as unfavorable to the party or contrary to the government's political goals. If the ruling party distorts the news for political reasons, blackmailing reporters have concluded, why wouldn't they do it themselves for financial reasons?

Which means, of course, that there are Things We Don't KNOW that we don't know about PRChina.

We do know about slave labor, to-order body-parts sales, forced abortions, and working conditions which would make Dickens convulse.

But those are not problems. Those are "signs of growing economic prosperity."

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