Laowiseass - Teacher's guide for advanced International journalism

Lesson One
OVERSEAS MEDIA ARE INDEPENDENT, EVEN JAPANESE MEDIA
A news assistant in our office will graduate this month with a news and communications bachelor's degree from Peking University, which Chinese like to call an "elite school." They studied AP, Reuters and Kyodo, especially their history and whatever influence each agency has wreaked around the world. Kyodo of course was the mouthpiece of imperial Japan that invaded China in 1931. She was never taught that these media, based today in democratic countries, operate with no government investment or government content control. Her first days at Kyodo back in April were like reeducation camp.
Lesson Two
OVERSEAS MEDIA ARE INDEPENDENT, EVEN JAPANESE MEDIA
When I asked He Yong, media liaison for the Beijing International Fund for Animal Welfare, about why China should oppose Japanese whale hunting, he replied: "You couldn't report that." Excuse me for presuming your ignorance, I thought, but I'm going to tell you: "Kyodo is independent. Japan doesn't control us. We can say what we want about Japan or China." Surprise, surprise, this is exactly what He Yong didn't know and what prompted his comment.
Lesson Three
OVERSEAS MEDIA ARE INDEPENDENT, EVEN JAPANESE MEDIA
In December anti-Japan protest leader Zhang Jianyong, about 30, white collar, declined to answer a Kyodo question about his 20-minute banner-and-bullhorn session in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing because Kyodo represented "Japanese media." No Japanese media, Zhang said at the Q&A following. A Reuters reporter repeated the Kyodo question and got an answer. Later Kyodo called a more senior protest leader to invite him and Zhang and the whole gang to drop by the Kyodo office and look at our clips on Chinese protests against Japan. He didn't come but Zhang's group didn't block our questions after that.
Lesson Four
OVERSEAS MEDIA ARE INDEPENDENT, EVEN JAPANESE MEDIA
"Developed countries, class, veer toward a government system called democracy, a set of principles and procedures that your teacher can't fully explain in this class," the teacher we fired for Party-line ignorance said. "Basically, they vote for their presidents, otherwise they carry on politically pretty much the same as we do (hack hack, excuse me, class, while I gargle with mouthwash). So we can assume that the news agencies of foreign countries also carry on as ours do here. They must obey the News Law, meaning if the government doesn't like a story, it gets spiked or the paper gets shut down." One in 500 students will be confronted with the truth in the sort of embarrassing or ungainly situations noted in previous lessons.
Exam Review
OK boys and girls, we've studied OVERSEAS MEDIA ARE INDEPENDENT, EVEN JAPANESE MEDIA for a week (month, semester, year) now. But I know you still may not get it or get it but not accept it because as children growing up under communism, paternalism and Xinhua News Agency, you cannot imagine press that doesn't follow the leader and defend the family honor as defined by papa. Try one more time to get your brain on top of it -- government here in this pile, big barrier next to it, media over there in that pile, another barrier, and the citizens wherever they want to be, listening to the media or the government or no one at all. News readers avariciously want to know about negative news involving their country, and the media serve their readers, part of this free market media concept that we'll push on you next semester. And if papa happens to get stuck in your stinky ink, there's not a whole lot he or Senator So-and-so or the Minister of Such-and-such can do about it except wet their pants.