Off the Media: China, Unbroken

OTM again goes international, and this week it’s not more of the same.

Co-host Bob Garfield lets a Chinese journalism prof. and an American-sounding analyst in Hong Kong give a lot of the gray shadings in the “Wild West” of China’s state-controlled news media, and, in Garfield’s words, “the absurdity of establishing a free press in a fascistic society.” The professor, a J-school dean, holds his own, talking about the dangers of an “invisible hand” of the market controlling the media more powerfully than the “visible hand” of the government. Kinda reminds us of here. Kinda.

Garfield does get his scornful digs in on a later story, laughing a bit too long and loud at the idea of the Newspaper Guild, or people in it, running newspapers, if they’re able to buy them from McClatchy (final item).

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