China Bans Foreign News

Submitted by Tracy Wong on Mon, 04/17/2006 - 12:04am.

These days, you can go on the Internet and find a blog about Africa, or turn on your TV and find the BBC. Yet, China has prohibited TV and radio stations from using international news coverage from foreign news sources. China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) says that the international content offered so far has a political intent and that is why the content has been banned.

In my opinon, most news has an intent –- and that is to inform. However, news will never be unbiased. Although one of the major tenets of journalism is to be objective, a writer is a human being. Even word choices like anti-abortion vs. pro-life give different impressions and cause politically correct mayhem. But the worst thing to do would be to limit a reader’s news sources. A reader has to see various point of views before making an informed one of his own. In 1949, simplified script was officially adopted by the People's Republic of China to increase literacy. To give the tools for learning but not the material to do so just undermines the whole attempt.

Julia Song @ Mon, 04/17/2006 - 11:18am

I think this can even backfire. People will want to know the news, and they will get it from other sources like the Internet even if the government banns it from television and radio stations.

I agree with you that news is not objective. But I'm confused-- how the simplified script is related to banning foreign news?

Tracy Wong @ Mon, 04/17/2006 - 7:46pm

Sorry about being confusing. It’s an analogy. Teaching someone to read gives them the tool to learn, but if you don’t give them any books, then they won’t learn anything. By banning foreign news, China isn’t allowing people to gain knowledge because it isn’t providing people with material.

Adam Raymond @ Tue, 04/18/2006 - 4:55pm

Well, China is offically wack.

Travis Carter @ Tue, 04/18/2006 - 7:44pm

This is pretty crazy. I think this should be seriously looked, because it really should be a right to get information freely from any source. And while I am sure there are more extreme cases out there in other nations, something of this magnitude is truly amazing. I am scared it will not be given proper attention because it may not be as visually horrific as seeing murders or torture on your television. But when people in the most populated nation in the world are not allowed to get news, then it is bad for everybody. The state watchdog says it wants to "maintain a correct propoganda direction." That is never a a good sign. Human knowledge and growth will be limited because of this, but it may not be immediately apparent.

Wei Man Tang @ Wed, 04/19/2006 - 11:31am

Ivan previously blogged about how media and technology brings about more ways for people in certain countries to learn about the outside world. It seems with this and China's internet censorship scenario the countries that truly have the power to utilize this technology also has the means to prevent their people from doing so.

But we have to remember that this is China and they surely aren't close to being a democracy, and I'm not going to pound the nail into the ground by reminding people of an infamous event that happened back in the 80s. Either just like how they're internet censorship did not get unnoticed, do not expect this news to pass by quietly either.

About

A group blog exploring our media world. Produced by the Digital Journalism: Blogging course at New York University, Spring 2007.

Recent comments

Syndicate

Syndicate content

Navigation