by Nomad
Russian President Putin's assault on the independent media in his country has been an undeniable triumph. And it took only five years. In fact, the Russian leader's success represents just part of a worldwide trend to convert the media into a tool of the state or of special interests.
Putin's Subjugation of a Free Media
In the US, people might complain in exasperation about the media, its negligence, and incompetence and its willingness to cozy up to Corporate America.
The fact that Donald Trump has been allowed to get this far without any serious examination of the man's character- indeed, his sanity- is an indication that it's not imaginary.
There are legitimate reasons to complain about the sorry state of journalism. True or not, such carping also requires us to put a few things into proper perspective.
Compared to other countries like China and Russia, (and even one of our NATO allies) the freedom of America's media is still something a lot of countries can only dream of.
In those countries, Facebook comments are routinely monitored, tweets are selectively censored and woe to you, if your humble Instagram remark should attract the attention of an over-zealous government prosecutor.
Journalism, as concerns collecting information, differs little if at all from intelligence work. In my judgment, a journalist's job is very interesting.
It's a very enlightening quote if you think about it. In making the comparison, Putin ignores one of the main principles of a free press, and its most important feature, its independence from the state.
Intelligence work is very different than journalism in that it does not work for the state. Unlike intelligence work, the information that journalists find becomes a public resource, freely available to citizens who care about discriminating the true from the false.
