Freelance Journalism

Have you ever seen a commentator's article been totally changed to avoid conflict with the policy goal?! (links: original | published)

I started to regret that so much time in my past years has been wasted reading newspapers published in China. Even though I read it critically (much stronger than you can imagine), once information is filtered to meet the policy goal, there is no base for criticism. The whole thing is fake.

Freelance journalism is one of a thousand jobs that feed yourself, your family, and your country's topmost 'interest'. It is just part of it - 'it can get people to sell out even while they think they're doing exactly the right thing.' (This is used by Chomsky to describe higher education, and here I am talking about almost the same thing - people are inside a system and told to do something - and they adapt themselves to it.)

So are academic, literature, even science. People are so good at telling lies, refer to the policy tone, and escape from critical thinking. Before it, they never ask the right questions, and will never even look at the right questions. They think they are right when they do it 'properly'.