Posted on 03/14/2005 2:49:02 AM PST by JohnHuang2
In an interview certain to confirm many Americans' concerns that the elite media establishment is less than patriotic, the managing editor of the Washington Post told China's official People's Daily Washington correspondent Yong Tang, "I don't think U.S. should be the leader of the world."
Philip Bennett of the Post also criticized the Bush administration's foreign policy saying he did not see much evidence to suggest the U.S. is actually promoting democracy around the world as it claims.
"My job is helping my readers trying to understand what is happening now," said Bennett. "What is happening now is very difficult to understand. The world is very complex. There are various complex forces occurring in it. I don't think you can imagine a world where one country or one group of people could lead everybody else. I can't imagine that could happen. I also think it is unhealthy to have one country as the leader of the world. People in other countries don't want to be led by foreign countries. They may want to have good relations with it or they may want to share with what is good in that country."
Bennett speculated that the world is headed into a period in which it might be dominated by U.S. imperialism.
"That is also a sort of colonial question," he said. "The world has gone through colonialism and imperialism. We have seen the danger and shortcomings of those systems. If we are heading into another period of imperialism where the U.S. thinks itself as the leader of the area and its interest should prevail over all other interests of its neighbors and others, then I think the world will be in an unhappy period."
In explaining the role of the press in America, Bennett told the China daily that newspapers in the U.S. do not have any political point of view they are trying to advance.
"We have a little bit different roles in newspapers compared with our counterparts in Europe and other countries," he said. "We don't have any political point of view that we are trying to advance. We don't represent any political parties. We are not tied to any political movement. On the news side of the paper we try not to give opinions. So I think the role the Washington Post should play is to hold the government accountable for decisions made by it."
As an example, Bennett cited the Washington Post's Iraq coverage.
"One of the jobs of our correspondents in Baghdad is to tell our readers what the Bush administration is trying to hide," Bennett said. "Bush says democracy is advancing in Iraq, but our correspondents say the situation there is much more complex than that. Our job is to put that in the public domain and challenge the government and hold them accountable. We do that by having independent reporting about events, by telling our readers what the actual situation is, with as much independence, fairness and accuracy as we can.
"Often that is in conflict with the government. That is why we are having a lot of pressure from the government, though not in the materials ways. We receive a lot of criticism from the government for presenting views of events which are in odds with what they are trying to present. This is very important in our system and it is one of the fundamental roles of the press," Bennett said.
Bennett then compared the resistance he has experienced from the U.S. government with the way the totalitarian government of China has stifled the press there.
"We have seen that similar roles of the press are developing in China as media expose corruption," he said. "In any system corrupt officials are trying to cover bad things up. We may look at the press coverage of issues like SARS epidemic. At the very beginning there were efforts to cover things up. But then the news came out everywhere through the press and even the text-messaging. Then the government was forced to admit what happened. This role is quite similar with the role we are trying to play here in the United States.
"Of course, we have a lot of limitations on our ability to do that. The government of the U.S. is becoming much more secretive, much more hostile to the press in terms of giving us access to the information. So a lot of what we do here is to fight for access to the information that we think the public should have. That takes a lot of our energy and resources," he said.
Bennett told the paper the influence of the "mainstream media" on shaping the opinions of the people is declining largely because of the Internet.
"Why is the influence of the mainstream media waning?" he asked rhetorically. "It is because there are so many sources of different news and information today. The Internet has made it possible for people to get news from online. Newspapers like the Washington Post have no longer monopoly on news and information. Even our readers spend a lot of time reading Internet, reaching different sites and comparing different news. That has made the influence of newspapers go down."
He also acknowledged that the media are out of touch with the religious values of the American people.
"Today, American people are more conservative, nationalistic and religious and more closed off to foreign influence than the media," he said. "By and large, American mainstream media has been slow to appreciate how important the religion is in America. We don't cover it very deeply and extensively. So I think there are areas we are out of touch."
Bennett acknowledged circulation at the Washington Post and most other large newspapers in the U.S. is falling.
Bennett assured the interviewer that his paper never characterizes China as a dictatorship.
"We don't use these words on the paper anymore," he said. "Now we say China is a Communist country only because it is a fact. China is ruled by the Communist Party."
Betraying one's country for an interview.
Next!
To call them the "Hate America First, Crowd" is an understatement.
"I don't think U.S. should be the leader of the world"
Well Mr. Bennett, I do.
But thanks for sharing this information with our communistic rival.
I don't understand why these people don't just leave and go somewhere else.
Second, at what point do we get to question their patriotism?
These liberal commie scum would like nothing better than for the UN to take control of everything and dictate to the world how each should run their own countries.
on a thread yesterday the link to the entire Peoples Daily piece was posted.....but I can't find it now.....can you or anyone provide it? tks
""My job is helping my readers trying to understand what is happening now," said Bennett. "What is happening now is very difficult to understand. The world is very complex. There are various complex forces occurring in it."
Translation: I need to suck up to these Commie's so that I have access to them for my newspaper.
Gee. Complex? Try transparent.
<< No difference between this man's comments and CNN's Eason Jordan.
Betraying one's country for an interview. >>
The enduring benefit of time spent at a re-education camp posing as a journalism school.
Eason Jordan and Rather-biased and this clown are but the visible examples of an enormous virulent and Goebbelsesque fifth column among the Western World's mass media.
The enemy is alive and well and is hidden in plain view.
Thanks to the internet it is becoming clear to millions of people that the media is nekkid.
No liberal, anti-American, pro the other side bias at the Washington Compost.
The United States is the land of the free, and we damn well intend to remain free at all costs. No other nation is capable of leading. Those who do not wish to follow had best stay the hell out of the way.
Funny. I bet those same "news reporters" (why not opinion-shapers, hmm?) who f-f-f-feel that this should be their focus would also rail against the notion of the traditional religious leader offering his opinions of spiritual text interpretations at religious services.
Personally, Mr. Benett, I think that your influence is waning simply because people are finally figuring out that you want to shape opinion rather than report on events, which is what they were expecting to get.
This guy doesn't know the meaning of leadership. It's not "ruling", it's setting the example that others will want to follow. What a jerk!!
Thank God for FreeRepublic, the MIM.
Most Informed Media.
we need a list of WP advertisers......
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