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Censorship comes in different shapes and the Broadcasting Authority has found a very imaginative way to justify it.

It censors in the name of impartiality and balance, with COVID justifying the turning of PBS into a government noticeboard.

This all started way back on March 17, when Malta was faced with the challenge of the pandemic. To help address an issue of serious public health consequences, the BA issued a circular to all broadcasters.

In that circular, it gave its blessing to all the press conferences that could address issues related to COVID-19. It went so far as to encourage all broadcasters to air the news conferences live, implying they were to interrupt their schedules to do so.

The initiative taken by the BA was commendable. Unlike the government, the authority prioritised public health and sought to encourage broadcasters to participate in the dissemination of information.

But in issuing that circular, the authority underestimated the shrewdness of a Labour government that was all too willing to call press conferences at peak times and have them aired on public broadcasting channels.

Now that broadcasters were being encouraged by none other than the BA to air these conferences live, no doubt Robert Abela and others from his cabinet saw it fit to usurp the authoritys instructions for their own ends: getting as much time on national television as possible.

The government then decided it was good to capitalise on so much attention and use the door opened by the authoritys circular to score political points.

This is where things started going haywire. We ended up with a government happy to call press conferences at its own discretion with broadcasters encouraged to air them live.

Let me give the BA the benefit of the doubt and say that until then it had failed to realise that its circular was being manipulated. Until the press conferences were truly dealing with issues of public health, there was agreement that they were necessary and correct.

When, however, they turned into a roadshow for the prime minister and cabinet members, and the message shifted from public health to partisan politics, the BA was called to make a judgement. In that judgement it chose to blame the journalists.

The authority failed to realise that the government had manipulated its original good faith in issuing those instructions to broadcasters. For the authority, it was the journalists who made the prime minister talk partisan politics.

Is it possible the none of the members of the BA, its CEO or its monitoring team realised that the prime minister was spending a lot of time dishing out propaganda before viewers could get snippets of information that could be useful to them?

Only in Malta do journalists get blamed for the manner in which the prime minister and his ministers answer questions.

Politicians, who are meant to be held accountable by journalists, were asked questions which they saw as an opportunity to throw partisan political punches, ignoring the public health issue altogether. And the journalists were considered to be tricking PBS into airing partisan political messages.

Only in Malta do journalists get blamed for the manner in which the prime minister and his ministers answer questions

So in marches the BA and orders PBS to continue airing the press conferences but not the journalists questions.

In other words, the prime minister can repeat, for minutes on end, that Malta is the best in the world, but the viewer cannot hear him being held to account for his actions.

Essentially, under the BAs draconian decision, if a journalist asks Health Minister Chris Fearne if he agrees with the actions of his colleague Tourism Minister Julia Farrugia Portelli, PBS cannot air that part together with the press conference.

What if Fearne is asked why the Malta Tourism Authority blatantly mocked his measures in relation to bars? PBS cannot air that. What if Abela is asked whether it is the act of a responsible prime minister to enjoy his family holiday while retailers and families are becoming increasingly concerned about their financial future? No, PBS cannot air that either.

The decision shows that the BA has missed the wood for the trees. It is complicit in making PBS a government notice board exacerbating the already gut-wrenching situation of having the publicly funded broadcaster bow its head to government.

Now PBS has the best excuse the Broadcasting Authority told me to do it.

To make matters worse, all this was brought about because journalists were blamed for doing their work.

If it were not for journalists, most political wrongs would remain uncovered. There would be no one to expose government wrongdoings or question its policies and actions.

Journalists ask questions in our name. In excluding those questions, the BA is curtailing our freedom to information, limiting our access to the rosy image that all governments want to project and that this government is so good at creating.

Saying that these questions can be aired on other stations simply reinforces the political divide, which our country simply cannot take for much longer.

If the BA is so afraid of receiving complaints about lack of impartiality and balance on PBS, then it needs to take a more active role in the name of freedom of expression and public debate, and this does not include censoring journalists.

It will need bold actions to foster public debate by including different opinions and ensuring that our national broadcaster does not remain a noticeboard for the government.

Therese Comodini Cachia, Nationalist MP

Independent journalism costs money. Support Times of Malta for the price of a coffee.

Original post:
New form of censorship - Therese Comodini Cachia - Times of Malta

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. So goes a phrase popularized by famed author Mark Twain that follows in the vein of Numbers dont lie. Liars use numbers.

Numbers can help us understand the world. They are concrete, and they dont lie. But they can mislead, and thats why numbers should be used sparingly. Of course, Ill be tossing that out the window as we look into the current back-and-forth between our guest commentators Jerry Dudley, Gary OConnor and Bill Collins.

The discussion stems from OConnors Aug. 23 commentary in which he wrote about the disproportionate killing of Black people by police: For every one Anglo man killed by police, three Black people are killed. Dudley and Collins took issue with that statistic, and they offered their own set of numbers from Statista.com that shows 399 Anglo people and 209 Black people were shot to death by police in 2018, and there were 370 Anglo people and 235 Black people shot to death by police in 2019 hardly the 1-to-3 ratio offered by OConnor.

Well, both sides are because what theyre discussing are different but related sets of data.

The Statista.com numbers are very specific in that they are the number of people by race shot to death by police. There are other forms of lethal force, and that distinction matters. Atatiana Jefferson, a Black woman, was shot to death in 2019 by a Fort Worth officer whereas Elijah McClain, a Black man in Aurora, Colorado, was taken off life support and died six days after police put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with the sedative ketamine. Jefferson is one of the 235 Black people in Statista.coms 2019 statistic. McClain is not.

OConnors ratio likely originates from a November 2016 report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, written by two Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doctors and a John Jay College researcher. The report found that in all fatalities resulting from the use of lethal force by on-duty law enforcement officers between 2009 and 2012 in 17 states, victims were majority white (52%) but disproportionately black (32%) with a fatality rate 2.8 times higher among blacks than whites. (Side note: It also found (f)atality rates among military veterans/active duty service members were 1.4 times greater than among their civilian counterparts.)

Context also is important for numbers. When we take the statistics offered by Dudley and Collins and put them in context to population size, they support the 2016 reports conclusion that victims were majority white but disproportionately black. Lets look at 2019s numbers: The U.S. Census Bureau reported an Anglo population of 250.2 million that year and a Black population of 44.08 million. The 235 Black people shot to death by police were 0.00000533% of the Black population, whereas the 370 Anglo people shot to death by police were 0.00000148% of the Anglo population.

While the percentages alone show a clear disproportionality, lets look at what they mean. For the Anglo population to experience the same percentage of lives lost as the Black population, police would have shot to death 1,326 Anglo people nearly 1,000 more than actual. And lets reverse it. If the Black population experienced the same percentage loss as the Anglo population, police would have shot to death 65 Black people just more than 3.5 times fewer than actual.

And while were on the topic of context, lets keep in mind that U.S. law enforcement agencies answer tens of millions of service calls and conduct millions of traffic stops each year that do not end with someone losing their life. A fraction of those police-public contacts end in tragedy, with Statista.com reporting 1,000 total people shot to death by police each year. Its possible reforms can help reduce that number, which would save lives and livelihoods. Looking at it this way, we can simultaneously back the blue and recognize a need for change.

Remember, the world isnt just black-and-white, and neither are numbers. Often, the truth is found somewhere in between.

Read more here:
COMMENTARY: The thing about numbers | Opinion - Paris News

OSAKA On Sept. 2, 1945, senior Japanese officials aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay surrendered to the United States-led Allied coalition. The move came just over two weeks after Emperor Hirohito told the nation, on Aug. 15, that Japan would surrender.

The day marked not only the formal end of the Pacific War but also the beginning of the occupation of Japan by foreign powers for the first time in its history.

Led and largely directed by the United States under Supreme Commander Allied Powers Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the United Kingdom, India, Australia and New Zealand would play supporting roles in the Allied Occupation, which continued until the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed on Sept. 8, 1951. The treaty came into effect on April 28, 1952.

What was the purpose of the Occupation?

The Occupation had two immediate objectives in the postwar period.

The first was to ensure Japan would never again become a menace to the U.S. or the rest of the world. The second was to bring about the eventual establishment of a peaceful and responsible government that would respect the rights of other states and support the U.S. and the United Nations.

To accomplish those goals, the authority of the emperor and the Japanese government was subject to MacArthur, who had sweeping powers to carry out the surrender terms and institute new political and economic policies.

Japan was under occupation for six years, until it signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty on Sept. 8, 1951.

What areas of reform were pursued?

Demilitarization and breaking up Japans large industrial groups, known as zaibatsu, were two major goals.

The Occupation also enacted land reforms that gave farmers and small landowners more rights. Trade unions were allowed to operate, and educational reforms created a school system based on the U.S. model and encouraged the teaching of democratic values.

U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur took the decision not to try Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal following Japans surrender at the end of World War II. | KYODO

Occupation authorities also worked with Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, after agreeing he would not abdicate or be prosecuted as a war criminal, to encourage Japanese to view him more as a constitutional monarch along the lines of the British system than as a living god.

The Occupation also forced a new Constitution on Japan to replace the prewar document that had given the emperor far more political power. It was promulgated in 1946 and went into effect in 1947. In drawing up the new Constitution, Occupation officials often clashed with conservative senior Japanese leaders, especially on expanding the rights of the people.

In 1995, Beate Sirota Gordon, who, as a 22-year-old Occupation employee had collaborated on the provision about womens rights in the new Constitution, told reporters that it had been hammered out by the U.S. and Japan over a 30-hour period in March 1946.

She had pushed for including a clause about womens rights, and her superiors agreed it should be included and advised the Japanese accordingly.

What did the Occupation discourage?

Despite an official policy of promoting free speech, Occupation authorities exercised strong censorship over the Japanese media.

On Sept. 19, 1945, MacArthur issued a press code that prohibited the printing of any material that interfered with public tranquility, and said that destructive criticism of the Occupation, or articles that invited mistrust or resentment of troops, would not be allowed.

Detailed reports about the effects of atomic bomb radiation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were suppressed, and Occupation censors prohibited articles that justified the actions of Japan during wartime, defended accused war criminals or contained military or nationalist propaganda.

Articles on black market activities, starvation (a major concern in the winter of 1945) or fraternization between Occupation personnel and Japanese women were also subject to censorship.

In his 1952 book Conquered Press: The MacArthur Era in Japanese Journalism, William Coughlin notes that the actual application of censorship rules was confusing and so difficult that some Japanese newspapers set up censorship desks where about a dozen men were expected to keep the rest of the paper informed on what the Occupation was saying about censorship and what kinds of stories were allowed.

How did the Occupation change over time?

By 1949, events within and outside of Japan were prompting a rethink on the part of Occupation officials about their earlier reforms. The Soviet Union acquired an atomic bomb and the Chinese Communist Revolution took place that year.

In Japan, hyperinflation was a problem. It was brought under control with the arrival, also in 1949, of Detroit banker Joseph Dodge.

His Dodge Line of policies included balancing the national budget and fixing the exchange rate at 360 to the dollar, along with unpopular austerity measures.

The end result of Dodges policies was that Japan would concentrate on becoming an industrial export power in later decades.

By the end of the 1940s, the Occupation was cracking down harder on domestic Japanese groups it deemed dangerous. These included unions and other groups directly or indirectly associated with socialists and communists.

On the other hand, many anticommunists conservatives and right-wingers who had been arrested in 1945 as suspected war criminals were released, to serve as American allies in the global struggle against communism. These events were part of what became known as the Occupations reverse course.

Was the Occupation limited to Japans main islands?

The islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu were under the control of the Supreme Commander Allied Powers, but the U.S. had sole authority over Okinawa (which it would retain until returning it to Japan in 1972).

Former Japanese colonial possessions were divided up among other Allied nations.

Japans Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Chief of the Army General Staff General Yoshijiro Umezu attend the surrender ceremonies on Sept. 2, 1945. | U.S. ARMY SIGNAL CORPS / U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES / HANDOUT / VIA REUTERS

China was given control of Taiwan, the Soviet Union had authority over South Sakhalin which Japan had taken from Russia 40 years previously as well as the Kuril Islands, of which the four nearest Japan were invaded by the Soviet Union after the Aug. 15 speech by Emperor Hirohito announcing the nations surrender.

The Korean Peninsula was divided across its middle. The U.S. took charge of the southern part of the peninsula, which became independent South Korea in 1948. The Soviet Union was given control of the land north of the 38th parallel, which became North Korea, also in 1948.

Islands in the Pacific, including Guam, were classified by the U.N. as Non-Self-Governing Territories, but administered by the U.S.

What is the Occupations legacy?

The early phase is usually viewed by historians as being a policy and diplomatic success, especially by American officials. On a personal level, Japanese who were children during the era still tell stories of American G.I.s passing out gum, ice cream and chocolate.

American popular culture that arrived with the Occupation troops, from movies to music, blossomed, which added to the view, especially in the U.S., that it was successful. The peaceful reaction to the presence of so many Allied troops by the Japanese people also meant the Occupation did not have to worry about putting down armed rebellions as it attempted to carry out its policies.

Historians in Japan and abroad generally agree that the Occupation accomplished many of its early goals, including disarmament, the repatriation of Japanese forces abroad, the ratification of a new Constitution rooted in democratic values, land reforms, more equal rights for women and a foreign policy that made Japan a close U.S. ally.

But the censorship exercised by the Occupation, the release and return to power of those arrested for war crimes and the crackdown on socialists and communists created problems that lingered long after the Occupation ended. The decision by MacArthur not to try Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal provoked anger among other allied nations.

Another issue that remains unresolved is that of the islands occupied by the Soviet Union and a separate peace treaty with Russia, which did not sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

Finally, mention must be made of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which would follow the Occupation.

It firmly placed Japan in the alliance of democratic nations during the Cold War period that followed, allowing Japan to rebuild its economy under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, without large defense expenditures.

But it also created questions about whether Japan, whose future international role was initially viewed by some Occupation authorities as that of neutrality the Switzerland of Asia had become too tied to Washingtons interests by the time the Occupation ended.

Read more here:
75 years on, legacy of the U.S.-led Occupation of Japan still resonates - The Japan Times

from the bow-down dept

While China-bashing is all the rage right now (much of it deserved given the country's abhorrent human rights practices), it's sort of amazing what a difference a year makes. While the current focus of ire towards the Chinese government seems focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and a few mobile dance apps, never mind the fully embedded nature of Chinese-manufactured technology in use every day in the West, late 2019 was all about China's translucent skin. Much of that had to do with China's inching towards a slow takeover of Hong Kong and how several corporate interests in the West reacted to it. Does anyone else remember when our discussion about China was dominated by stories dealing with Blizzard banning Hearthstone players for supporting Hong Kong and American professional sports leagues looking like cowards in the face of a huge economic market?

Yeah, me neither. But with all that is going on the world and all of the criticism, deserved or otherwise, being lobbed at the Chinese government, it's worth pointing out that the problems of last year are still going on. And, while Google most recently took something of a stand against the aggression on Hong Kong specifically, other companies are still bowing to China's thin-skin in heavy-handed ways. The latest example of this is an admittedly relatively trivial attempt by Activision to kneel at the altar of Chinese historical censorship.

The debut trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has been blocked in China, and subsequently edited everywhere else, after featuring around one seconds worth of footage from the Communist governments crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989. When the game was first announced last week, a trailer running for 2:02 was released to the world and hosted on the official Call of Duty and Xbox YouTube pages, along with major trailer sites like IGN and Gamespot.

On August 21, however, the videos on Call of Duty and Xboxs YouTube pages were replaced with a much shorter, 1:00 version. This isnt an additional trailer, its a replacement, which we know because...the original 2:02 video we embedded in our own story is no longer working, having been marked as private.

So here's the, ahem, tik-tok on this. Activision, which also owns Blizzard, releases a new trailer for a new Call of Duty game. That trailer includes a single second of an image from Chinese protests against the government from three decades ago. The Chinese government, true to form, flips the fuck out and bans the trailer entirely. One imagines there were also threats of banning the game entirely, but that is yet to be confirmed. Activision then, seeing the Chinese government go full carpet bomb over the trailer in its country, decides to try to out-carpet-bomb the carpet bomb by doing a delete/replace of the offending trailer worldwide.

While we're talking about a mere video game trailer here, the implications aren't as insignificant as they might seem. Games are a subset of culture and commerce. While much of the discourse over how companies do business in China is overstated to say the least, what Activision did here is something different. Indeed, it could probably be best summarized as: Activision allowed the Chinese government to censor the company's art throughout the world.

And, sinophobia aside, that is a very dangerous precedent to set. That it was an action taken on a trailer for a game called Call of Duty: Cold War, in fact, is probably proof that the universe is not without a sense of irony.

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Filed Under: call of duty, china, free speech, games, human rights, video gamesCompanies: activision, blizzard

Read more here:
Activision Deletes And Replaces 'Call Of Duty' Trailer Worldwide Over 1 Second That Hurt China's Feelings - Techdirt

The major broadcast and cable networks were mighty friendly to Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden and the splashy national convention which provided his debut in the political arena last week.

Here is the question that follows: Will media coverage of the Republican National Convention be as generous, or will the networks end up censoring President Trump and his campaign message, or compromising the coverage itself?

The liberal media is already rustling with possibilities.

America is experiencing asymmetric lying because President Trumps campaign is much more dishonest, more frequently, than Joe Bidens campaign. News outlets have to acknowledge this truth imbalance, CNN media analyst Brian Stelter warns in a tweet.

Should TV networks air the Republican National Convention in full? he asked, suggesting that broadcasters consider cutting away if they believe the Republicans are offering disinformation to the voting public.

A network decision to stop covering the GOP gathering because of perceived disinformation could be a real moment of truth in the media business.

This week is a test for those in the television news business: Are they still trying to deliver news, which means letting their audience actually witness important events for themselves (albeit with analysis and commentary from the networks)? Or are they in the well-only-show-what-liberals-want-us-to-show business? Last week, CNN and MSNBC let their audiences see roughly 90% of the Democratic video show that stood in for this years national convention, without any meaningful interruptions, writes Rich Noyes, research director for the Media Research Center.

If those organizations are still in the news business, thats exactly how much of the Republican Convention youll see on those networks, too, he says.

The conservative press watchdog found ABC, CBS and NBC showed viewers very large percentages of the Democratic fare. Mr. Noyes now wonders whether they will treat the Republican National Convention equally.

By Thursday night, well see whos left in the news business, and whos abandoned it for the political advertising business, Mr. Noyes says.

6,000 MILES

Let us pause and consider the Question of the Day for Joe Biden, posed daily by Donald J. Trump for President, the presidents official campaign entity. And here it is:

Last week during your convention, President Trump traveled more than 6,600 miles to speak to voters in states across the nation, which is more miles than you have traveled in total since March 7. During the Republican National Convention this week, do you have any plans to leave your basement and actually meet voters?

This inquiry was made on Monday just as the Republican National Convention got rolling.

AOC HAS A SAY

Its not a campaign video, but it could be. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has released an 18-minute, on-camera showcase of her beauty routine, published online Monday by Vogue magazine which has yet to do a feature on first lady Melania Trump, a former fashion model with global credentials.

The video, meanwhile, has already racked up more than 1 million views on YouTube.

The reason why I think its so important to share these things is that, first of all, femininity has power, and in politics there is so much criticism and nitpicking about how women and femme people present ourselves, the New York Democrat explained.

Femme designates a distinctly feminine style that can be adopted by people of any sexual orientation, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Just being a woman is quite politicized in Washington. Theres this really false idea that if you care about makeup or if your interests are in beauty and fashion, that thats somehow frivolous. But I actually think these are some of the most substantive decisions that we make and we make them every morning, the lawmaker said.

She also revealed her color of choice for a bold lip is Stilas Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick in Beso, a bright red.

One of the things that I had realized is that when youre always running around, sometimes the best way to really look put together is a bold lip. I will wear a red lip when I want confidence, she notes.

If Im going to spend an hour in the morning doing my glamour, its not going to be because Im afraid of what some Republican photo is going to look like. Its because I feel like it, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said.

NOW THERES A THOUGHT

The Republican National Convention will be a four-day celebration of President Trump and a visceral four-day condemnation of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his party, says Fox News, in a handy and succinct description of the weeks big event.

And what does this say about Mr. Trump?

It will be his greatest performance ever, declares Lucianne Goldberg, founder of the news aggregation site Lucianne.com.

POLL DU JOUR

55% of U.S. adults plan to get a coronavirus vaccine shot when it becomes available; 54% of Republicans, 54% of independents and 66% of Democrats agree.

58% of Whites, 49% of Hispanics and 41% of Blacks, plus 59% of men and 51% of women also agree.

26% overall do not plan to get the vaccine shot; 37% of Republicans, 26% of independents and 15% of Democrats agree.

24% of Whites, 29% of Hispanics and 34% of Blacks, plus 23% of men and 29% of women also agree.

20% overall dont know whether they will get the shot; 18% of Republicans, 20% of independents and 19% of Democrats agree.

18% of Whites, 23% of Hispanics and 25% of Blacks, plus 18% of men and 21% of women also agree.

Source: A Fox News poll of 1,000 registered U.S. voters conducted Aug. 9-12 and released Thursday.

Helpful information to [emailprotected]

Excerpt from:
Inside the Beltway: Censoring the GOP convention is part of the media plan - Washington Times