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Bloomberg News Is Said to Curb Articles That Might Anger China

106 points by weu 13y ago

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
This is the fundamental problem that the West has: we don't have jacobins. We don't have political and intellectual elites that aren't cynical about our own values. It is not like we will punish some extreme Muslim treating his wife like a slave with a jail time. We will just be politically correct and say that's his culture. Liberalism doesn't go well with radicalism for some reason. Radical Liberals like Robespierre, Danton are needed. People who believe in our Western values enough to die in their name. If we are cynical about ourselves how on Earth can we compete with people who commit suicide because they believe in their values more than their life. That's something we really need. We give up our values for nothing. Who cares about China? Our value is freedom of speech and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France. I wish we could have elites today that would be as serious about freedom, liberalism and capitalism as French Revolutionaries were. I hope I will live to see it. Just tired of the apathy in the US. Wake up!
- siculars 13y ago
  Agreed. I have no problem saying that Western culture of tolerance and inclusion and freedom is absolutely better than and superior to some of the other alternatives out there like fanatical Islam and capitalist/socialist China. Westernism is suffering a crisis of conscious right now. We are trading what we have fought for for things we are afraid of. Wake up, indeed.
  - smtddr 13y ago
    > I have no problem saying that Western culture of tolerance and inclusion and freedom is absolutely better than and superior to some of the other alternatives out there like fanatical Islam and capitalist/socialist China. As long as it stays as just your opinion, that's fine. But I'd have a problem with people who think they should take their opinions on morals & ethics and go force it on other parts of the world. And before anyone asks, no I'm not saying genocide should be ignored because "that's their culture." But going to another place and pointing guns in their face saying "stop being violent!" is a bad idea, imho
    - groby_b 13y ago
      That leaves us with an interesting conundrum - what, pray tell, should we do about genocide then? Actually stopping people has just been taken off the table by you. Sitting around and lamenting the state of the world is only going to make us feel better, but won't do much for people being slaughtered for their race/beliefs/orientation/whatnot. That leaves....?
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - thedrbrian 13y ago
        Tumblr posts and online polls
- accelguy 13y ago
  You do know that your buddy robespierre is far closer to fanatics like the chinese and radical islamists than is it to liberalism? after all the guy sent anyone who opposed him to the guillotine, he was the architect of the reign of terror in france and it didn't end until he got his head cut. Why don't use actual real-life cases of similar people, like FDR?
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    The whole of Europe basically declared war on France when Robespierre was in charge. He wasn't looking for another excuse to kill a few thousand people. He couldn't have having traitors in this circumstance. People forget about historical circumstances when talking about Robespierre. He wasn't looking for excuses to kill people like Stalin. He really had no choice, the spies of these 6 countries really were there, and the country was also on the verge of civil war. And big chunks of French elites supported the outside interventions to restore monarchy. How you deal with that? By talking about gay rights? And Robespierre did know that he will die in the process. When you read him, he says it openly - I know the process will swallow me - he accepted that. All I'm saying is, this is what we need now, if we don't want to continue on this path of cultural suicide.
    - accelguy 13y ago
      So was Stalin, are you going to defend him as well?
      - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
        Stalin was looking for excuses to kill people. For example in 1937 - way before World War 2 started in Europe - he ordered murdering of all officers in the Red Army. If I remember exactly over 30,000 people were killed. There was no enemy for Russia at that time. There was no war going on. Nothing. Just Stalin's paranoia. Robespierre on the other hand was governing France that was on a verge of a civil war: monarchists vs. republicans/liberals/democrats. He was governing France that was in state of war with basically whole of Europe. Six foreign powers if I remember correctly attacked France at the same time trying to restore the monarchy. With monarchist in France - French people - supporting the foreign powers. You tell me there is no difference? Please elaborate.
- csallen 13y ago
  > Our value is freedom of speech and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France. Oh irony of ironies. That type of thing is exactly why I'm glad there's a dearth of such extreme political fanaticism. In the end, a democracy will only be as intelligent as its people are educated, and even the educated can fall prey to the madness of the masses. Demagogues take control, and soon enough you have actors blacklisted as Commies, mosques being attacked, free speech "advocates" murdering dissenters, and -- maybe -- Chinese nationals being rounded up in the streets. No thank you.
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    Radicalism isn't always a bad thing. The problem with the current Western civilization is that we traded radicalism for cynism and liberty for safety. This has nothing to do with education. Goring was very well educated. Most of the population in any country of the world will turn into angry blood thirsty mob - as soon as you leave them without choice. Look at Golden Dawn and Greece. It's not like Greeks becamse angry blood thirsty mob overnight. It was a process of radicalisation in the wrong direction. And if good people in Greece won't wake up and stand up radically for the liberal values the Greece will be lost. And this will be precisely because Greek elites that represent Liberal way of thinking are cynical about their own values. They don't look like they believe in them. They don't look like they believe in anything. And that's not a political class that you will vote for in a crisis. For the crisis you need someone with a balls and vision, not someone mumbling about political correctness and gay rights. Radicalism is like a knife. In bad hands or minds it will surely do more harm than good, but giving up on it altogether isn't wise. Especially when you are a good guy and refuse to be radical in your efforts to spread good.
- skrebbel 13y ago
  > and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France Just about anybody could get guillotined in Revolutionary France. The time was called "La Terreur" for a reason :-)
- jlgreco 13y ago
  "Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." -Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)) See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- WoodenChair 13y ago
  Yeah ya know, cause people who kill others for how they think, are great examples of Freedom of Thought. Think before you post, buddy.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- yongjik 13y ago
  Poe's law is strong with this one.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  Oh come on, since when is Bloomberg a stand-in or microcosm of Western values?
confluence 13y ago
One of my life rules is that: Everyone is a whore. So before you listen to what anyone says about anything, check to see who pays the bills. I've found it to be a highly effective filtering strategy.
- funkyfreak 13y ago
  So you work for Atlassian?
  - confluence 13y ago
    Trader.
    - funkyfreak 13y ago
      Do you have any thoughts on a Bitcoin options market?
      - confluence 13y ago
        Sorry, I have nothing in bitcoin.
        phyalow 13y ago
        Thats a shame.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
pseingatl 13y ago
You mean, just like the New York Times holds back articles that might offend the Administration; or when the Administration asks them to?
tn13 13y ago
Nothing surprising. China has too much of financial muscle.
alexeisadeski3 13y ago
This is a major reason to support NewsCorp, even for those of you whom are liberal Fox-haters. Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to stay as independent as possible this charade, and has made quite clear that he will avoid the Chinese market if that's what it takes.
- selmnoo 13y ago
  The guy is a grade-a warmonger, with a stated mission of shaping public opinion to reach specific political ends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF9HpuZm6-g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF9HpuZm6-g. There is absolutely no reason to support him or NewsCorp. They've already ruined one journal (the WSJ), let's hope they don't grow more. Use adblock when visiting any NewsCorp website please.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.
- justin66 13y ago
  If I absolutely had to choose between a news organization that twists things for the republicans or one that twists things for the Chinese communist party, I'd choose one that twists things for the Chinese communist party. Since really, that news is not nearly as relevant to me. It's a false dichotomy, of course.
- credo 13y ago
  >>Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to stay as independent as possible this charade, and has made quite clear that he will avoid the Chinese market if that's what it takes At best, your comment is a naive and ignorant take on Murdoch and China. See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/asia/26murdoch.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/asia/26murdoch.html?... for how Murdoch wooed Chinese leaders, how his Star TV man tried to stop the BBC from showing a Tiannamen Square video and how they ultimately dropped the BBC from Star TV's Chinese programming.
  - 13y ago
dude3 13y ago
Drudgereport.com, generally a hawkish site, is accessible in China, Nytimes is not. In fact, no conservative websites are blocked.
r0h1n 13y ago
This isn't "the west" cowing down before China, but a private, profit-seeking news organization deciding on a more pragmatic (albeit cowardly) option after what must have been a big cost-benefit analysis. Sadly, this is the future of news. No news organization can today afford to antagonize one of its largest (potential) markets simply to strive for some higher journalistic zeal. Take Google for instance. Does anyone today care that Google stood its ground against the Chinese government and squandered the entire country away to competitors? Whatever halo they earned when they made that decision has long vanished. Edit: Morals and halos don't pay journalist salaries.
- davidjgraph 13y ago
  "Does anyone today care that Google stood its ground against the Chinese government and squandered the entire country away to competitors?" Yes, me. It's the single factual act of Google's history that sticks in my mind. It says to me someone near the top will lose revenue to make an ethical stand. I can't remember too many other concrete examples of this in large companies.
  - jonmrodriguez 13y ago
    Didn't Facebook do the same?
    - andreyf 13y ago
      No.
    - mtgx 13y ago
      Facebook strikes you as the company that would have principles and morals? The reason they are not in China is because the government wouldn't let them, with or without censorship. They are too much of a "threat to the unity of the society" - you know, the typical authoritarian excuse.
    - selmnoo 13y ago
      Oh, you have no idea how badly Zuckerburg wants to be successful in China. Zuck has been learning Mandarin for a long time, I really think a primary motivation for that has to do with plans of really getting going in China. When he visited China in 2010, the first two places he went to were Baidu's and Alibaba's offices. There was supposedly a partnership in the works but much to Zuck's chagrin it ended up never materializing. The company has been trying on and on again to get into China somehow, Sandberg has been on the record saying "China's the big one" (she talked a lot about it in the Charlie Rose interview from some time back), Zuck himself I think was scheduled to give China another visit but those plans were presumably scrapped in the post-NSA-leaks environment. Now more than ever, it is clear that no American social networking media company will ever have substantial market share in China. The Chinese government will never let it fly, it's as simple as that.
credo 13y ago
It is ironic that the editor should compare China to Nazi-era Germany and then go on to suggest that self-censorship is the best way to cover news in China. On one hand, some courageous Chinese men and women risk everything for freedom and fight their government. On the other hand, it is sad to see these rich American businessmen collaborate with the Chinese autocrats (even though these American businessmen don't need to fear torture etc and the only risk they run is losing some extra money by not being to conduct business in China)
pavs 13y ago
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell This might not be a popular opinion, but I honestly think that its not possible for a for profit news organization to be fair and balanced. Specially in todays world when news organizations are owned and operated by a few to drive public opinion. Ideally news organization should either be donation funded and non-profit. When you start caring about maximizing page-views and start pushing for more profit per pixels, its stops being journalism.
- tete 13y ago
  Yes and no. You can consider buying a newspaper a donation. Actually what you suggest already has been tried in various forms, the outcome being stuff like indymedia, but also others. The problem you face here is that having no ads in your news usually means having no money for: marketing, getting out your stuff. A lot of things are already know anyway somewhere, just that person isn't loud enough or nobody cares. lawyers, if you don't want to do just public relations then you will need lots of them. reportages, that often require a lot of preparation, going to other countries, hidden cameras, tons of other equipment, etc. fallback money in case something goes really bad. It's sad, but it feels a bit like if there were enough donating people for serious news then the world would already be better and require it way less. Also you saw the Wikileaks drama. I can be kinda rough.
- dinkumthinkum 13y ago
  You're just throwing the baby out with the bath water. The world is not this black and white. Things like this do get called out in the media. Do you think that is just well orchestrated conspiracy to throw us off?
tete 13y ago
You do realize this is common and goes into both directions? The same has in lets say Europe, where news don't dare to talk badly about the US or Russia. It's a really common thing. Nobody wants to be the reason for diplomatic troubles and everyone knows how childish all over the planet can act Sometimes causing that trouble simply doesn't seem worthwhile (even though one really should say that it would their job), maybe also because a lot of them is pretty clear and not surprising in first place. In a world where society wants to be passive (and yeah, even if the startup folks like to exclude themselves we always need point at examples that aren't really part of the startup culture) the motivation to criticize another, economically important country or even your own country isn't exactly high. Sure people might agree and say that they not like it, but changes of policies are pretty much non-existent.
alan_cx 13y ago
So.... Like when people here on HN decide not to criticise, say, Tesla, Musk, Linux, open source, etc because they know they will get voted down? Or where politicians don't properly investigate or voice issues with the likes of the NSA because they simply don't know what dirt they have on them? Or don't criticise presidents who start wars on lies because they are called unpatriotic or anti American? No. I don't like it one little bit either. But frankly, people with something to lose are rank cowards. People taking the "coin", worse.
cinquemb 13y ago
My my, looks like the pot calling the kettle black... So NYT, I'm supposed to choose 'morally' between two governments which neither give a fuck about me and from you telling us so? That's amusing.
veidr 13y ago
Somewhat ironically, I am in China today, and therefore I can't access the linked article. (Without doing a bunch of convoluted VPN fuckery, I mean.) But I don't have to read it to know that profit-seeking corporations often kowtow to the various forces that could negatively affect that profit. Bloomberg has a thing with the totalitarian Chinese regime. The New York Times does favors for the Obama administration. Probably both of them do a lot of bootlicking for their advertisers. That's why free society needs numerous media outlets, and the legal freedom to report the truth. Because there isn't any obligation for them to report all of the truth, and there isn't any feasible way to force them to do so anyhow. But at least when we have a bunch of them, the pot will call the kettle black, and remind us how they work.
- foobarqux 13y ago
  Tor with hidden bridges and obsfproxy still works last I heard.
AJ007 13y ago
In the past I have found Bloomberg has published exceptionally high quality journalism pieces, specifically those published in their magazine Bloomberg Markets. This year I have become worried by the internal news-terminal spying scandal and increasingly political opinion pieces they publish. The alternative, WSJ, is overall fairly lacking (though credit to some really good investigative work over there too.) Bloomberg News is in an interesting position that other news companies would never get in to. In the article it mentions Bloomberg is already having trouble in China due to previous articles they wrote and "sales of its financial terminals to state enterprises have slowed." Bloomberg has a near monopoly status on this aggregated financial information. If a company, public or private, chooses not to buy them they are put at a competitive disadvantage (assuming its not being used to spy on them; as private citizens we face this same challenge with some of the online services we use.)

106 points by weu 13y ago

This is the fundamental problem that the West has: we don't have jacobins. We don't have political and intellectual elites that aren't cynical about our own values. It is not like we will punish some extreme Muslim treating his wife like a slave with a jail time. We will just be politically correct and say that's his culture. Liberalism doesn't go well with radicalism for some reason. Radical Liberals like Robespierre, Danton are needed. People who believe in our Western values enough to die in their name. If we are cynical about ourselves how on Earth can we compete with people who commit suicide because they believe in their values more than their life. That's something we really need. We give up our values for nothing. Who cares about China? Our value is freedom of speech and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France. I wish we could have elites today that would be as serious about freedom, liberalism and capitalism as French Revolutionaries were. I hope I will live to see it. Just tired of the apathy in the US. Wake up!

siculars 13y ago
Agreed. I have no problem saying that Western culture of tolerance and inclusion and freedom is absolutely better than and superior to some of the other alternatives out there like fanatical Islam and capitalist/socialist China. Westernism is suffering a crisis of conscious right now. We are trading what we have fought for for things we are afraid of. Wake up, indeed.
- smtddr 13y ago
  > I have no problem saying that Western culture of tolerance and inclusion and freedom is absolutely better than and superior to some of the other alternatives out there like fanatical Islam and capitalist/socialist China. As long as it stays as just your opinion, that's fine. But I'd have a problem with people who think they should take their opinions on morals & ethics and go force it on other parts of the world. And before anyone asks, no I'm not saying genocide should be ignored because "that's their culture." But going to another place and pointing guns in their face saying "stop being violent!" is a bad idea, imho
  - groby_b 13y ago
    That leaves us with an interesting conundrum - what, pray tell, should we do about genocide then? Actually stopping people has just been taken off the table by you. Sitting around and lamenting the state of the world is only going to make us feel better, but won't do much for people being slaughtered for their race/beliefs/orientation/whatnot. That leaves....?
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - thedrbrian 13y ago
      Tumblr posts and online polls
accelguy 13y ago
You do know that your buddy robespierre is far closer to fanatics like the chinese and radical islamists than is it to liberalism? after all the guy sent anyone who opposed him to the guillotine, he was the architect of the reign of terror in france and it didn't end until he got his head cut. Why don't use actual real-life cases of similar people, like FDR?
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  The whole of Europe basically declared war on France when Robespierre was in charge. He wasn't looking for another excuse to kill a few thousand people. He couldn't have having traitors in this circumstance. People forget about historical circumstances when talking about Robespierre. He wasn't looking for excuses to kill people like Stalin. He really had no choice, the spies of these 6 countries really were there, and the country was also on the verge of civil war. And big chunks of French elites supported the outside interventions to restore monarchy. How you deal with that? By talking about gay rights? And Robespierre did know that he will die in the process. When you read him, he says it openly - I know the process will swallow me - he accepted that. All I'm saying is, this is what we need now, if we don't want to continue on this path of cultural suicide.
  - accelguy 13y ago
    So was Stalin, are you going to defend him as well?
    - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
      Stalin was looking for excuses to kill people. For example in 1937 - way before World War 2 started in Europe - he ordered murdering of all officers in the Red Army. If I remember exactly over 30,000 people were killed. There was no enemy for Russia at that time. There was no war going on. Nothing. Just Stalin's paranoia. Robespierre on the other hand was governing France that was on a verge of a civil war: monarchists vs. republicans/liberals/democrats. He was governing France that was in state of war with basically whole of Europe. Six foreign powers if I remember correctly attacked France at the same time trying to restore the monarchy. With monarchist in France - French people - supporting the foreign powers. You tell me there is no difference? Please elaborate.
csallen 13y ago
> Our value is freedom of speech and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France. Oh irony of ironies. That type of thing is exactly why I'm glad there's a dearth of such extreme political fanaticism. In the end, a democracy will only be as intelligent as its people are educated, and even the educated can fall prey to the madness of the masses. Demagogues take control, and soon enough you have actors blacklisted as Commies, mosques being attacked, free speech "advocates" murdering dissenters, and -- maybe -- Chinese nationals being rounded up in the streets. No thank you.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  Radicalism isn't always a bad thing. The problem with the current Western civilization is that we traded radicalism for cynism and liberty for safety. This has nothing to do with education. Goring was very well educated. Most of the population in any country of the world will turn into angry blood thirsty mob - as soon as you leave them without choice. Look at Golden Dawn and Greece. It's not like Greeks becamse angry blood thirsty mob overnight. It was a process of radicalisation in the wrong direction. And if good people in Greece won't wake up and stand up radically for the liberal values the Greece will be lost. And this will be precisely because Greek elites that represent Liberal way of thinking are cynical about their own values. They don't look like they believe in them. They don't look like they believe in anything. And that's not a political class that you will vote for in a crisis. For the crisis you need someone with a balls and vision, not someone mumbling about political correctness and gay rights. Radicalism is like a knife. In bad hands or minds it will surely do more harm than good, but giving up on it altogether isn't wise. Especially when you are a good guy and refuse to be radical in your efforts to spread good.
skrebbel 13y ago
> and people who don't believe in freedom of speech were guillotined in Revolutionary France Just about anybody could get guillotined in Revolutionary France. The time was called "La Terreur" for a reason :-)
jlgreco 13y ago
"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant." -Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)) See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
WoodenChair 13y ago
Yeah ya know, cause people who kill others for how they think, are great examples of Freedom of Thought. Think before you post, buddy.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
yongjik 13y ago
Poe's law is strong with this one.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
Oh come on, since when is Bloomberg a stand-in or microcosm of Western values?

confluence 13y ago

One of my life rules is that: Everyone is a whore. So before you listen to what anyone says about anything, check to see who pays the bills. I've found it to be a highly effective filtering strategy.

funkyfreak 13y ago
So you work for Atlassian?
- confluence 13y ago
  Trader.
  - funkyfreak 13y ago
    Do you have any thoughts on a Bitcoin options market?
    - confluence 13y ago
      Sorry, I have nothing in bitcoin.
      - phyalow 13y ago
        Thats a shame.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

pseingatl 13y ago

You mean, just like the New York Times holds back articles that might offend the Administration; or when the Administration asks them to?

tn13 13y ago

Nothing surprising. China has too much of financial muscle.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago

This is a major reason to support NewsCorp, even for those of you whom are liberal Fox-haters. Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to stay as independent as possible this charade, and has made quite clear that he will avoid the Chinese market if that's what it takes.

selmnoo 13y ago
The guy is a grade-a warmonger, with a stated mission of shaping public opinion to reach specific political ends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF9HpuZm6-g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF9HpuZm6-g. There is absolutely no reason to support him or NewsCorp. They've already ruined one journal (the WSJ), let's hope they don't grow more. Use adblock when visiting any NewsCorp website please.
dragonwriter 13y ago
Sometimes, the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.
justin66 13y ago
If I absolutely had to choose between a news organization that twists things for the republicans or one that twists things for the Chinese communist party, I'd choose one that twists things for the Chinese communist party. Since really, that news is not nearly as relevant to me. It's a false dichotomy, of course.
credo 13y ago
>>Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to stay as independent as possible this charade, and has made quite clear that he will avoid the Chinese market if that's what it takes At best, your comment is a naive and ignorant take on Murdoch and China. See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/asia/26murdoch.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/asia/26murdoch.html?... for how Murdoch wooed Chinese leaders, how his Star TV man tried to stop the BBC from showing a Tiannamen Square video and how they ultimately dropped the BBC from Star TV's Chinese programming.
- 13y ago

dude3 13y ago

Drudgereport.com, generally a hawkish site, is accessible in China, Nytimes is not. In fact, no conservative websites are blocked.

r0h1n 13y ago

This isn't "the west" cowing down before China, but a private, profit-seeking news organization deciding on a more pragmatic (albeit cowardly) option after what must have been a big cost-benefit analysis. Sadly, this is the future of news. No news organization can today afford to antagonize one of its largest (potential) markets simply to strive for some higher journalistic zeal. Take Google for instance. Does anyone today care that Google stood its ground against the Chinese government and squandered the entire country away to competitors? Whatever halo they earned when they made that decision has long vanished. Edit: Morals and halos don't pay journalist salaries.

davidjgraph 13y ago
"Does anyone today care that Google stood its ground against the Chinese government and squandered the entire country away to competitors?" Yes, me. It's the single factual act of Google's history that sticks in my mind. It says to me someone near the top will lose revenue to make an ethical stand. I can't remember too many other concrete examples of this in large companies.
- jonmrodriguez 13y ago
  Didn't Facebook do the same?
  - andreyf 13y ago
    No.
  - mtgx 13y ago
    Facebook strikes you as the company that would have principles and morals? The reason they are not in China is because the government wouldn't let them, with or without censorship. They are too much of a "threat to the unity of the society" - you know, the typical authoritarian excuse.
  - selmnoo 13y ago
    Oh, you have no idea how badly Zuckerburg wants to be successful in China. Zuck has been learning Mandarin for a long time, I really think a primary motivation for that has to do with plans of really getting going in China. When he visited China in 2010, the first two places he went to were Baidu's and Alibaba's offices. There was supposedly a partnership in the works but much to Zuck's chagrin it ended up never materializing. The company has been trying on and on again to get into China somehow, Sandberg has been on the record saying "China's the big one" (she talked a lot about it in the Charlie Rose interview from some time back), Zuck himself I think was scheduled to give China another visit but those plans were presumably scrapped in the post-NSA-leaks environment. Now more than ever, it is clear that no American social networking media company will ever have substantial market share in China. The Chinese government will never let it fly, it's as simple as that.

credo 13y ago

It is ironic that the editor should compare China to Nazi-era Germany and then go on to suggest that self-censorship is the best way to cover news in China. On one hand, some courageous Chinese men and women risk everything for freedom and fight their government. On the other hand, it is sad to see these rich American businessmen collaborate with the Chinese autocrats (even though these American businessmen don't need to fear torture etc and the only risk they run is losing some extra money by not being to conduct business in China)

pavs 13y ago

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell This might not be a popular opinion, but I honestly think that its not possible for a for profit news organization to be fair and balanced. Specially in todays world when news organizations are owned and operated by a few to drive public opinion. Ideally news organization should either be donation funded and non-profit. When you start caring about maximizing page-views and start pushing for more profit per pixels, its stops being journalism.

tete 13y ago
Yes and no. You can consider buying a newspaper a donation. Actually what you suggest already has been tried in various forms, the outcome being stuff like indymedia, but also others. The problem you face here is that having no ads in your news usually means having no money for: marketing, getting out your stuff. A lot of things are already know anyway somewhere, just that person isn't loud enough or nobody cares. lawyers, if you don't want to do just public relations then you will need lots of them. reportages, that often require a lot of preparation, going to other countries, hidden cameras, tons of other equipment, etc. fallback money in case something goes really bad. It's sad, but it feels a bit like if there were enough donating people for serious news then the world would already be better and require it way less. Also you saw the Wikileaks drama. I can be kinda rough.
dinkumthinkum 13y ago
You're just throwing the baby out with the bath water. The world is not this black and white. Things like this do get called out in the media. Do you think that is just well orchestrated conspiracy to throw us off?

tete 13y ago

You do realize this is common and goes into both directions? The same has in lets say Europe, where news don't dare to talk badly about the US or Russia. It's a really common thing. Nobody wants to be the reason for diplomatic troubles and everyone knows how childish all over the planet can act Sometimes causing that trouble simply doesn't seem worthwhile (even though one really should say that it would their job), maybe also because a lot of them is pretty clear and not surprising in first place. In a world where society wants to be passive (and yeah, even if the startup folks like to exclude themselves we always need point at examples that aren't really part of the startup culture) the motivation to criticize another, economically important country or even your own country isn't exactly high. Sure people might agree and say that they not like it, but changes of policies are pretty much non-existent.

alan_cx 13y ago

So.... Like when people here on HN decide not to criticise, say, Tesla, Musk, Linux, open source, etc because they know they will get voted down? Or where politicians don't properly investigate or voice issues with the likes of the NSA because they simply don't know what dirt they have on them? Or don't criticise presidents who start wars on lies because they are called unpatriotic or anti American? No. I don't like it one little bit either. But frankly, people with something to lose are rank cowards. People taking the "coin", worse.

cinquemb 13y ago

My my, looks like the pot calling the kettle black... So NYT, I'm supposed to choose 'morally' between two governments which neither give a fuck about me and from you telling us so? That's amusing.

veidr 13y ago

Somewhat ironically, I am in China today, and therefore I can't access the linked article. (Without doing a bunch of convoluted VPN fuckery, I mean.) But I don't have to read it to know that profit-seeking corporations often kowtow to the various forces that could negatively affect that profit. Bloomberg has a thing with the totalitarian Chinese regime. The New York Times does favors for the Obama administration. Probably both of them do a lot of bootlicking for their advertisers. That's why free society needs numerous media outlets, and the legal freedom to report the truth. Because there isn't any obligation for them to report all of the truth, and there isn't any feasible way to force them to do so anyhow. But at least when we have a bunch of them, the pot will call the kettle black, and remind us how they work.

foobarqux 13y ago
Tor with hidden bridges and obsfproxy still works last I heard.

AJ007 13y ago

In the past I have found Bloomberg has published exceptionally high quality journalism pieces, specifically those published in their magazine Bloomberg Markets. This year I have become worried by the internal news-terminal spying scandal and increasingly political opinion pieces they publish. The alternative, WSJ, is overall fairly lacking (though credit to some really good investigative work over there too.) Bloomberg News is in an interesting position that other news companies would never get in to. In the article it mentions Bloomberg is already having trouble in China due to previous articles they wrote and "sales of its financial terminals to state enterprises have slowed." Bloomberg has a near monopoly status on this aggregated financial information. If a company, public or private, chooses not to buy them they are put at a competitive disadvantage (assuming its not being used to spy on them; as private citizens we face this same challenge with some of the online services we use.)