Newspapers have a constitutional guarantee of freedom to print opinions that insult the government. The web has no such guarantee. Without newspapers we will soon experience the censorship of "Net Nanny" and its competitors. The web is subject to central censorship. Just ask any Chinese.

sure, as opposed to the really free newsprint press in china??

or maybe the one radio station that everyone is required to have turned on??

what a dishonest comparison, which would be easier to censor? a newspaper or the internet?

beeeeeeeppppp thanks for playing. the newspaper.

oh wait, tell me again why phoney propaganda rags like the NYT and Lat have been brought down.

could it be the internet broke their monopoly on the news and people started seeing how biased and worthless they were?

You see, big, the difference is that in China they have no constitutional guarantee of the freedom of the press. Yours is the dishonest comparison. Either you are one of them - the haters of freedom - or you are too stupid to research issues on your own. My money is on you being a hater. Who is paying you to spread such dangerous misinformation? Or do you do it for free because you are a whimpering racist idiot?

And on the off chance that you are just stupid, and not evil, it may help if you think of the "press" as the actual thing that it is - a mechanical device that produces print on paper - and stop thinking that press means "media" - because it doesn't. It's the little details like that - actual definitions of words - where the powers that be are able to screw the feeble-minded such as yourself time and time again.

You should probably watch the Simpson's episode titled "Fraudcast News" - perhaps it can enlighten you. The Simpson's is on Fox if that makes it easier for you.

The internet is easier to censor, if you want to take the Chinese example. Newspapers, for the most part, can't be throttled, whereas in China they can pretty easily block access to specific websites. Look up "underground press" sometime. So, good effort in trying to sound smart, better luck next time.

Also, there is no radio station in China that everyone is required to have turned on. I have no idea where you get your news about China, but it's clearly from someone who is as brainless as you are. Then again, it was obvious that you were trying to shoehorn a discussion about China in there anyway, since neither the OP nor the article mentioned it.

Oh, underground press - sure. But we're not talking about zines, are we? Surely zines, and samizdat of various kinds, are not the same thing at the New York Times. And it's not the zine owners who are complaining about being shut down. Everyone has computers and printers nowadays - if you want to distribute a printed publication, who's stopping you? Go right ahead.

And I'm not sure that it's that easy to shut down the Internet. How many gifted Chinese hackers are managing to get on the "forbidden" website? Surely more than we hear about in the West.

As for the constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press - the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech to everyone, whether or not they run a newspaper. You are as free to criticize the government as the New York Times is, and you won't have the immense corporate pressure from wealthy donors that they have.

I'm not saying that all newspaper reporting is worthless..but face it..it IS all biased. Newspapers are owned by rich guys..like Murdock..

And that's true for all of them. How many poor or middle class people do you know that own a newspaper?

So...how unbiased is it?

Tell me why the Wall Street Journal didn't put these four little facts together..

American wages stayed stagnant or went down over the last 12 years.

Inflation rose each of the last 12 years at an average of 3%. (36%)

Housing prices rose dramatically over the last 12 years, neaalry doubling in many places.

And Americans set a new record for home ownership.

It should not take a financial genius to see that:

People making the same money that is now worth 36% less because of inflation buying a record number of homes that are more expensive than ever..was a recipe for disaster.

I hope that rag goes under..bunch of incompetent corporate shills.

wgbrand:

Newspapers have a constitutional guarantee of freedom to print opinions that insult the government. The web has no such guarantee. Without newspapers we will soon experience the censorship of "Net Nanny" and its competitors. The web is subject to central censorship. Just ask any Chinese.

Um - the Constitution says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

Do you really think that the founding fathers actually were referring to the 'mechanical printing machine' when they speak of 'the press'??!?! Isn't it more likely that they were referring to the people that write the news? And therefor, doesn't that mean that news on the web is also protected by the constitution?

Just saying.....