My good friend and patna Fraggle Beanmilk has just been hired by a large daily newspaper here in the Du. They signed ol' Beanmilk to a three year contract and the training began yesterday.
So far, she has learned that Marxist Theory on the media is right in line with the current Party theory and with all the other red theories inbetween.
"A propaganda tool has no freedom."
this was bluntly put to the new reporters today. Yesterday they learned that the media is the servant of the people, the society, the nation, the Party and the government. As such, there can be no bad influences emanating from the pages of any outlet. Nothing that may damage the interests, plans or work of the government may be reported. Nothing that may hurt the feelings of the people or upset the harmony of society may be reported. Nothing that deals with bums, child labor, corrupt officials, dirty sewers or ridiculous traffic can be reported.
There are a host of topics and themes that must be reported in an appropriate manner. Taiwan must be labeled an area and all its "officials" must have "quotation marks" around their titles.
You can not put Islam and pigs on the same page. You cannot in any form or manner report on anything that might be bad for the Party. The priority of the news is as follows: Party politics, timely events, news.
and so on. Any infraction will result in getting fired immediately.
One good example that the "professors" gave them was of the two advertising production guys who let an ad through that commemorated June 4, 1989 (6.4 as it is known in China). Those two guys did not know about 6.4, so the government's indoctrination program had actually been successful, but they were fired anyway. For not knowing any better.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
oh man, that last bit is great. sounds like something that would happen in _1984_. ending with, "And then they were whisked away to the Ministry of Love." it really is training yourself in doublespeak. you have to be aware that something happened only so you can say it never happened.
mmmm.... thoughtcrime
Funny, our broadcast tv news schlockstation deals solely with bums, child labor, corrupt officials, dirty sewers and ridiculous traffic... but we are most certainly not free to report what really should be reported. I guess we all have our own version of groupthink -- some is just more overt. So is your friend gonna stick it out?
Post a Comment