John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE ON CBC NEWS
“Journalists barred from Morneau speech in Beijing a day after Trudeau praises free press
“Business council says media excluded due to 'misunderstanding'; minister's office says it wasn't consulted”
First, it goes almost without saying, people who love a free society embrace a free and healthy press.
But I don't think preaching about it, as Trudeau did, is very helpful, just as preaching about almost anything is not very helpful. Its main usefulness is for a political impression back home.
And I actually thought some of Trudeau's words missed the mark even for us in Canada.
They certainly missed the mark in China, a proud, ancient society which very much resents preaching from the outside.
I wish we could just respect our differences, and the differences are real and will not fade away because of sermonettes.
As they say about writing, it is always more powerful to show than to tell. Our best effort should be in showing a good and peaceful and decent Canadian society. Something I have to say we do not always succeed at, making it even less appropriate to preach.
Actually, I thought Trudeau was mainly addressing, without saying so directly, the situation in Washington.
But what a waste of breath there. In the world's self-declared "indispensable nation," the true believers in American exceptionalism who run the place and try running the planet are not even tuned to the right channel to hear the sermon.
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Response to another reader’s comment:
Yes, a fair number of comments do get censored, and I don't mean comments using vulgarity.
The CBC, while it does a good job overall in these forums, can't help but reflect political pressures with regard to certain topics and how they are treated in the articles and certainly how they are commented upon.
For people who do a lot of reading in the world press, this is fairly obvious.
My own view on a free press is included in the fabulous old quote about freedom of the press being possible only for those who own one.
Our Western journalism is full of a lot of high, airy notions which in fact, day to day, are ignored, just as we see, say, in our politics.
It is a complex issue, and that reality gives us even less cause to be preaching.
Readers may enjoy aspects of: https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/09/25/john-chuckman-comment-on-the-hatred-of-russia-its-background-and-the-purposes-it-serves-on-the-dishonesty-of-our-press-in-serving-that-purpose-and-the-importance-of-foreign-and-independent-news-s/
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Further response to the same reader:
They've already disabled my previous response to you, a response containing no vulgarity or name-calling.
Gee, there is sure a lot of hypocrisy around notions like a "free press.”
