Well it's still better than what you have - the grorious party controlling what you can see or hear. If it wasn't for the internet, you would still be singing odes to Mao and the cultural revolution.
When major mainstream media can fabricate an article like this, your media standard is certainly worse than ours.
Mao era was 30 years ago, pull yourself out of the cave.
Actually it does. Free means one is free to do what one wants to - not what the grorious party wants one to. "You are free to choose an colour you want, as long as it is black." is not freedom, it is the opposite.
Fallacy. You're only as free as the law permits. Even in the land of freedom, US of A, free doesn't mean complete freedom. You're not free to go naked as you wish. In some countries you can.
That automobile company is American. So much for freedom of choice!
Defamation law is a curb on freedom - as is any law. Yes, read this carefully - any law is a restriction on freedom. The law against murder takes away my freedom to murder. The point is that we need as few laws as possible to have a healthy society, and no more. So there needs to be a law against murder, and a law against theft. But there should be no laws to "ensure professionalism", just as there should be no laws to "ensure piety" (like in muslim countries) or a law to ensure good fashion sense in attire.
There's no such thing as professionalism in piety or fashion sense. These are personal choices.
As far as media freedoms are concerned, they ought to have complete freedom, with the restriction that they cannot defame individuals - the defamation law which you mentioned. And defamation law is very specific in places where it exists - something called "absence of malice" is a defence against charges of defamation. Without getting into legalese, I'll just say this - a newspaper editorial going against the 'grorious party's' position is not a crime. Nor is an opinion piece asking for an end to communism and full commitment to free market economics (which most of your people want, which has given you prosperity in the past 30 years, which even your leaders know to be right, and yet the official party line is against). A media publication against the government's functioning is also not a crime - it is a boon. In your country, any media not toeing the govt line is liable to prosecution. Searching for the incidents that happened in 1989 in Tiannamen square will get you nowhere, if you are in China.
If your grorious party allows you, go through this link:
Propaganda in the People's Republic of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Defamation is just an example. The point is, regulatory law is required to ensure professionalism. Every industry has a regulatory body, from financial to medical. It's a question of how good the regulatory body is. In India, media regulation simply doesn't exist!!!
Censorship and professionalism are independent of each other. You can have little censorship and no professionalism, like India media. Or some censorship with good professionalism, like China's.
Quoting Wikipedia ? Joining Club 82?
Every country has some sort of political censorship, yours is no exemption.
India Bans Movie on Indira Gandhi's Assassination - NBC News
Many books of political and religious content were banned in India too.
You are completely, thoroughly wrong on that. It is in India that newspapers are more likely to get in trouble than the US or western Europe. There is much more regulation in India than in those places. You can find not only biased news, but also completely dishonest news from American or European media. But because everybody can report news, the truth eventually prevails.
And yes, there is very strict regulation for the media in India, compared to Europe or North America. Although not the kind of censorship that prevails in China.
Do not confused regulation with censorship. Censorship limited content. Regulation encompasses censorship, quality of work and professionalism.
So called India "free" media actually has more censorship than US and European media: Sexual content are banned, ditto certain religious and political content too. Hence, higher chance of getting into trouble. (Also, proving my point again, you're as free as the law permits)
In terms of regulating the quality of work and professionalism, Indian media is pathetically lacking behind American, European and Chinese media.
