There. I just coined a phrase.
I’ve been doing some reading today (Note: that makes it a good day for me), and I’ve been seeing many articles and postings published by the China-focused academia or journalism community. Like the Nutty Yale Professor a while back, these articles leave me with a certain sour taste in my mouth. I just can’t place it.
I mean, really long articles like this one (I had to go for a sandwich mid-read) from Rebecca MacKinnon about DCMA, the youtube/Viacom fight, and digital copyright in Hong Kong.
Yes, Youtube’s getting hassled for hosting copyrighted clips, but yet there’s no mention in this article about the multitiude of Chinese youtube clones which continue to host playlists of Hollywood movies in full (among other things). For a China/HK-focused blog, I was just surprised that this was not mentioned, at the very least in passing. In fact, no one seems to be talking about it at all.
Take Spiderman 3 as an example. That’s just one instance I’ve found today. I’d cite more examples, but I’m not a journalist. I’m just some guy in China.
I was also reading this wonderful piece of work that I found via CLB. This guy rips on author/professor Peter Navarro for not having consulted enough sources, or not having quoted enough from China’s staple publications. Whether it’s true or not, I couldn’t care less. But the tone of academic snobbery in this article just made it unbearable, and impossible for me to pass over:
Frankly, I download more English-language scholarly or research pubs on China in one month than he cited in his entire book!! . . . My reading list for this past week alone included sources from the Morgan Stanley Global Economic Forum, ADB, World Bank, Brookings, European Foreign Affairs Review, Journal of International Marketing, and the usual stuff published in everyone’s favorite dailies and weeklies. original post
I don’t know about the state of China Journalism, but recently I’m a bit skeptical. And frankly, a little bored with it all. I’m just happy that the China Blogosphere is thriving, and providing an alternative to those who are supposedly in the know.
So what is Journal-jism?
Well, it’s like journalism.
Only it leaves a certain indescribable bad taste in your mouth.
And it’s very hard to swallow.
