« Upgrading a PC to Fedora Core 4 with no boot media | Main | Planarity »

More Astroturfing

There's an interesting letter in this morning's unlinkable South China Morning Post. The link is, as ever, behind the subscription only firewall.

(You know, I'm sure that the scmp would make as much money from extra views on their advertising as they would lose by dropping the subscription.)

RTHK: another change

I applaud the belated step taken by Hong Kong in discontinuing the live airing of horse racing. It is high time also that Hong Kong took a hard look at RTHK's malpractice in airing a self-made weekly programme criticising, if not humiliating, the Hong Kong government and its staff.

This programme is outrageous by any standard. No other place would have a radio and television outlet using every opportunity to humiliate the very master that funds its operations like RTHK. We Hong Kong taxpayers will no longer tolerate the poor behaviour of RTHK.

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

So what's this? No government broadcaster should ever be critical of the government? Possibly in the kind of authoritarian society the letter-writer dreams of while he sleeps in his jackboots, this is indeed the case.

In this world though, there's a long history of shows on the BBC and RTÉ (both state broadcasters) which comment on, and are critical of, the government of the day. It's not seen as subversive, just as part of the way things are. After all, if we change our government every few years, they must be doing something worthy of criticism, right?

While Hong Kong doesn't change the government as such, (we elect some members of the Legislative Council, but not the Chief Executive), why should we not at least be able to discuss the government?

The writer of the letter is probably one of those pro-CCP people who believe that you must never criticise the central government; that the CCP can do no wrong. That criticism is treasonous.

Sort of like those right-wing Americans who believe everything wrong with America is the fault of 'liberals' despite the right-wing party controlling all three branches of government (and controlling the press as well).

Posted by dave on July 13, 2005 11:42 AM.

Comments so far: 1

#1 :: Ram :: July 15, 2005 02:01 PM

you could be wrong dave. just by the text alone I think the author was just being sarcastic; that if the rthk could be pressured into dropping one programme, the rest should be easy. Of course that's just observation based on two paragraphs of words. My thought, not only should rthk continue racing commentary, they should make it available on radio dweeb(that's three) if only to make up for its deficiencies). As for badmouthing the government, I couldn't care less whether they do or not. Critique ain't changing things.

Remember Me? Yes No

)