Posted on 07/31/2007 5:34:18 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
Media are no longer allowed to report “bad stories” about food. Some papers dropped whole sections on political and social current affairs; others are told to write only about sports. US-China talks on new food safety rules begin in Beijing.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Mainland censors are tightening their grip on the media and limiting negative news reports, especially on food safety. Media outlets that report on food safety have been punished. In such an atmosphere of state-sponsored media crackdown a US delegation arrives in Beijing today on a mission to improve food and drug safety.
The Publicity Department of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, the city's top censorship body, has ordered a popular tabloid, the Beijing Daily Messenger, to scrap its political and social pages and cover instead entertainment and lifestyle stories.
An estimated one-third of the newspaper's 100 or so reporters will lose their jobs when the 40-page daily shrinks, as expected, to 32 pages starting tomorrow.
The Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports that The First, a daily launched in December 2004, has also come under pressure from Beijing censors to focus only on sports, but a formal order has not been handed down.
Other newspapers under the control of the Beijing propaganda authorities like Beijing Youth Daily and Beijing Evening News have also been warned against running negative news about food safety.
Shanghai censors issued an order to Shanghai press that all reports related to food safety be held unless they are confirmed by the local food quality administration bureau, a local source said.
The news black-out came last week after punishment was dished out to Beijing Television after a freelance reporter was arrested and several executives censured or sacked for bogus footage of a street vendor stuffing steamed buns with cardboard in lieu of pork.
For analysts the bogus buns scandal gave the authorities the pretext to censor news about the most worrisome issue in China and the world, namely the export from China of toxic fish, lethal pet food and poisonous cough syrup.
Ironically, the Beijing Daily Messenger was the only Beijing newspaper not to pursue the cardboard-buns story.
Food safety remains at the top of public interest and it is hard for media not to cover it.
With such reporting virtually banned, CCTV’s Weekly Quality Report, a programme famous for exposing food safety problems, has toned down its reports in its latest broadcasts. In a recent one it limited itself to informing people on how to tell real honey from fake.
It is in this atmosphere that a US delegation has arrived in Beijing today on a five-day fact-finding mission on food and drug safety.
US regulatory agencies are concerned about the insufficient infrastructure in China to assure the safety, quality and effectiveness of many export products.
For this reason the US Food and Drug Administration banned last month imports of Chinese farm-raised catfish, basa fish, shrimp, dace and eel.
China in turn tightened inspections of US imports at its ports, and halted shipments of poultry, pigeons and meat as unsafe.
But China-US trade is essential to both and the US Department of Health and Human Services expressed hope to have “strong, action-oriented documents” by December.
No news is good news....right?
Well, we take a free press for granted, even if some media show their biases.
A totalitarian government can do what they are doing in China because of their powers and not having to follow the rule of law. The mostly liberal types who complain about talk radio should thank God every day that the freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press that allows things that they hate also allows them to produce the drivel spewing from most MSM outlets.
And I certainly would rather be living under our system with MSM that has bias than a Chinese style dictatorship that simply tells papers what to print. And remember how Cindy Sheehan’s pal, Hugo Chavez, has been shutting down TV stations. We take a lot for granted.
But every good communist knows that if you suppress news of tainted food you make it fit for human consumption. It’s genius.
Surely with this kind of “reasoning”, this should qualify for your ping list.
If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
And they are all liars.
Do they think what they don't know won't hurt them?
Well that makes it all safer, don’t you feel safe now? But what do we do when people in our country die or get sick?
It’s beginning to look like you don’t want to rely on a communist country for anything important, like food or other things you might put in your mouth. We already suspected critical materials were not reliable, like high strength bolts and missile guidance systems, oh wait, the missile guidance systems problem was fixed by the first Clinton, sorry.
China, use at your own risk ... I wonder if the Brands who saw cost savings from all the communist slave labor are now suspecting their Brands may be the real victims?
I don’t have to go on some sort of “boycott” of take-out Chinese food, do I? I mean, the family that runs the local shop ARE naturalized citizens...even though they grossly abuse the Child Labor Laws of our state. Doesn’t bother me one bit. Their kids stay out of trouble under Mom & Dad’s thumb every spare moment. And they actually HAVE a MOM and a DAD! Yippee! :)
However, I always eat as locally as I can and grow a lot of my own food as well as hunt and fish and glean from the bounty of Nature around me (and the ‘Day Old Bread Bin,’ LOL!) so this stuff hasn’t effected me so far.
I’ll start worrying about it when someone in Hollywood dies, say, Babs Streisand or Alec Baldwin. That’s the ONLY way to know when a REAL crisis is hitting us. *SMIRK* ;)
Too bad they did that. Instead of working to insure us they were cleaning up the problems, they try to hide the problems from us, so we won’t know when bad things happen. People all over the world will die because of this. Now, I KNOW I will never eat anything that I know comes from China. Not now, nor in the future.
I don't believe that anyone, not even the most radical Maoist, would have ever believed just 30 years ago that such a statement could be uttered in 2007 as a normal, serious statement. The United States, mutually dependent on Red China? It would have been too preposterous for even grade B science fiction made in 1977.
We should cease all normal trade relations with Red China. It's not only foolish to make a disgusting totalitarian state --- one that is now clamping down on its press in the usual clumsy, high-handed fashion --- even more wealthy than it already is, but is now clearly a matter of our own health and safety.
Not to be confused with my philosophy of, "what the government doesn't know won't hurt me."
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