Strange but True: Communists Censor News
The Associated Press has confirmed what had been rumored elsewhere: mainland Chinese new stations blocked out images and sound of protestor Wenyi Wang in their broadcasts.
While U.S. media featured the protester, who had obtained temporary press credentials as a reporter for a Falun Gong newspaper and pleaded with Bush to stop Hu from persecuting the banned spiritual movement, the incident was absent from official Chinese reports.
China also blacked out CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC World, which are available in some hotels and Western housing.
Neither was there any government or state media comment on a White House announcer who referred to China as the "Republic of China," the official name of rival Taiwan, instead of the People's Republic of China.
One has to ask: How is the Chinese government sophisticated enough to censor streaming news feeds, but dumb enough not to demand the Epoch Times off the media list? As micromanaged as these state visits are, do foreign dignitaries have any say over details like that?
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One could also ask how did the Secret Service end up clearing Ms Wang Wenwi given her history of "intimidation" against Chinese Presidents.
I imagine the only thing that really makes the heckler story so newsworthy is the fact that someone managed to slither into a media press conference, landing a better venue in which to heckle.
Otherwise, I would've been surprised if Hu made it through his US tour *without* a protestor or two getting within clear earshot of him. Whenever a state leader - especially of a major global 'player' like China - visits another country, getting a taste of some local heckling and protesting just seems to come with the territory.
Bush gets heckled all the time.
Time-delayed broadcasts are time-delayed for this very purpose.
Why is this news?
One has to ask: How is the Chinese government sophisticated enough to censor streaming news feeds, but dumb enough not to demand the Epoch Times off the media list?
As a petty bureaucrat, I can answer that question:
Incompetence.
Strange but True: Communists Censor News
I hear that Communists also spy on their citizens and detain them without trial.
I'm glad I don't live in a Communist country.
We only spy on the guilty ones; if they weren't guilty, why would we be spying on them?
"We only spy on the guilty ones; if they weren't guilty, why would we be spying on them?"
Yeah, they didn't reach a trade deal because they were too busy swapping phone tap and bugging techniques.
How is the Chinese government sophisticated enough to censor streaming news feeds, but dumb enough not to demand the Epoch Times off the media list?
Censors historically have always been rather sloppy, dense, or both. For example, witness how the Russian censors allowed Aleksandr Radishchev to publish in 1790 A Journey From St. Petersburg To Moscow, a clearly subversive work which questioned the very foundations of the Tsarist government and society.
Well, if Epoch Times is being truthful in saying they had nothing to do with her, then I guess they don't deserve to be censored. I guess the real question is, is that the truth?
You're all overlooking the most important point:
If the ChiComs censor Wenyi Wang's picture, how can guys talk about whether she's hot or not?
Censors historically have always been rather sloppy, dense, or both. For example, witness how the Russian censors allowed Aleksandr Radishchev to publish in 1790 A Journey From St. Petersburg To Moscow, a clearly subversive work which questioned the very foundations of the Tsarist government and society.
A Russian history professor once told our class that the Tsarist censors used to let in volumes of Marx into Russia. The reason was that Marx was so boring, nobody would read him. After getting through only ~ 80 pages of Das Kapital, I can believe it.
Eh, America, China, what's the difference?
Well, this will warm the hearts of pinkos everywhere, to know that for all their flirtations with the market, the Red Dynasty are still a pack of Maoists at heart.
-jcr
If the ChiComs censor Wenyi Wang's picture, how can guys talk about whether she's hot or not?
I think her gumption is hot, sight unseen. 🙂
Stop the presses!! The Communists censor news! !!
We await with bated breath for the next scoop.