...as a journalist I can't ignore this:
"The beating of two Japanese journalists by police in western China drew an official apology Tuesday, but Beijing also set new obstacles for news outlets wanting to report from Tiananmen Square in the latest sign of trouble for reporters covering the Olympics." (New Fears about Olympic press freedoms)
China is a communist country, I get it. It has limits on its press and their rules are not something you should take lightly. But don't offer to host an international event in your country, then (pretend to) fail to recognize that the press are going to want to get behind every angle of what's happening in the country before, during, and after the event takes place. The job of the press is to find an angle that is presentable to the public. You can't report mundane information like "China is smoggy. Olympics start Friday" every day of the week. You have to see chip through the exterior to see why the government is so uptight and what is occurring against the Chinese system. And if China thinks they can avoid the international threshold of what makes a story a story, well, then they've got another thing coming. Riots held by the press will be larger than those held in Tibet. Mark my words.
I want to give China the benefit of the doubt, really I do, because we should know better. We show know that any "promises" given by a Communist country are about as good as the paper their written on. And after 97 years since the Bolsheviks rolled in and communism took over Russia and Asia, we should know not to mess with Communist countries' long-installed rules. But, I guess us Westerners will never learn.
